"bah can someone close this thread before it gets out of hand?"

Samsa · 10-31-2002, 08:45 PM

do you mean before suze comes back and replies to you?

Quote:

You're Jewish, and you live in America...you're not being slaughtered. Plenty of Jews live in Europe, and they haven't been slaughtered in over 50 years for that... plenty of other groups are being slaughtered all over the world. Not every other religious group is asking for their own country. Virtually every religious sect has been persecuted at one time or another in history. Jews, Muslims and Pagans have gotten it the most... but only Jews are the ones looking for their own country. Coexistance is a wonderful thing to strive for, however, the taking of land from a settled group and forcing people into poverty for the sake of a misplaced religious group in search of their own colony isn't exactly the best way to achieve coexistance. We have coexistance in America and Europe and everywhere else for that matter because we gain our land the peaceful way...with money. Not with guns.

the jews don't have their own country. they haven't had one for 2000 years. and if you don't think they're discriminated against in many countries you're fucking wrong. israel has immigrants pouring in from russia. why? do the fucking math. All major religious groups have their own country. the jews don't. do the fucking math. during world war ii the jews couldn't go anywhere because no one would let them in. and guess what? they got slaughtered. i'm sorry you can't comprehend this simple fact.

and you don't think america didn't get their land with guns? are you fucking retarded? just a couple posts ago you made a reference to -- guess who -- the native americans. how did europe get settled? how did the roman empire get created and then how did it fall and how did the germanic tribes establish countries and boundaries? with swords

no one gains their land the peaceful way. the british if anything TRIED to make israel a nation 'the peaceful way' but it didn't fucking work.

Samsa · 10-31-2002, 08:46 PM

quote:
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Originally posted by Samsa

i have no desire to be respectful of a fat stupid whore who claps when people make references to the murder of israeli citizens. fuck you.
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I clapped at the statement that someone else besides me on this message board did not support Israel. Not at the muder of Israeli's. Read the thread.

*****

you're 'against israel' meaning you're 'against its existence' meaning would you clap tomorrow if syria and iraq went in their and wiped the 'shitty little country' of the face of the planet? it's fucking stupid to be against a *country*. that's fucking retarded.

Samsa · 10-31-2002, 08:47 PM

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Originally posted by Samsa

so if you had something about 'i hate niggers' i am supposed to respect the fact that some people just have different opinions?

i asked pakula a question referring to israelites, he replied thinking i was referring to a different set of israelites. you're the one who turned it into a debate because his statement in the firs tplace was just a misconception of what i had been saying in the first place. it didn't need a big debate over israel, just me to explain the biblical reference.

hmm insults get me nowhere? how about you've been insulting me ever since i was born. i don't want to have an intelligent debate with an unintelligent person. i'm not going to have an intelligent debate with anyone until they stop making inflamatory remarks.
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So what? A debate started...and if you read this thread, you're the one making inflamatory remarks. You're the one who looks ignorant here. I'm not going to get into another debate on who is more intelligent... I really don't care. Saying "I don't support Israel" is VERY different from saying "I hate niggers". I haven't been insulting you... I did in one or two threads after getting sick of being flamed for no reason by you. I'm being very civil... you're not. You're making a scene for no reason.

**

you didn't say 'i don't support israel'

you said 'i am against israel' meaning as i said before you are against its existence and the existence of the millions of LIVES that exist IN israel. including arab lives. get a fucking clue.

Samsa · 10-31-2002, 08:49 PM

quote:
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Originally posted by Samsa

actually i was referring to the 'my roommate always leaves her door open' thread which was months ago.
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If it was months ago, then why does it still matter to you? It's a message board. We all have our bad days. I don't even remember that thread.

****U*

once again your historical consciousness is fucked up, even regard to the last twenty minutes. why did i bring it up in the first place? because you said some stupid shit statement like 'suze hatese me for some reason *shrug* '

i then, in response to your retarded litlte comment, explained why i 'hate' you or rather, in case you fucking forgot, why the animosity arose (i made a sarcastic reply to some annoying reply tyou made to my post, one of many yet i had succeeded in just ignoring you previously yet this time i was just too in a bad mood to ignore you ) so i explained to everyone why there is 'animosity' between us and it's not because 'suze hates me for some reason *shrug* '; it's because you're a psychotic BIPOLAR BITCH who flies off her handle when someone makes thei mplication that they don't appreciate your fucking presence. so that's why i fucking hate you. so sorry you don't understand why it's 'relevant', well it's only relevant because you brought it up, you dumb bitch.

ZERO · 10-31-2002, 08:50 PM

Samsa have you ever been to the MIddle East?

BeautifulLoser · 09:49 PM

You're being a ranting raving bitch right now. Shut up.

Just because she's "against Israel" means she wants them to die.

She said she understands why Palestinians do what they do, and that it's a good way to make a political statement, and in a way it is. She didn't say it was a good idea, just that they make their point. Alot of people on this board are "against the USA", but that doesn't mean they want us all to drop dead of gonorrea.

melancholia has been nothing but civil in that thread, and she wanted to end the conversation before you turned it into a big raving bitch fest. But it looks as if you already have. Congratulations.

useful idiot · 10-31-2002, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BeautifulLoser

melancholia has been nothing but civil in that thread, and she wanted to end the conversation before you turned it into a big raving bitch fest. But it looks as if you already have. Congratulations.

we're dealing with suze here. calm down

Mayfuck · 10-31-2002, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BeautifulLoser
Just because she's "against Israel" means she wants them to die.

BeautifulLoser · 10-31-2002, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by useful idiot

we're dealing with suze here. calm down

eeh. I'm just in a very irritable mood right now, and her completely unwarranted, irrational insults and comments just seem so ironic to me.

Samsa · 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BeautifulLoser
You're being a ranting raving bitch right now. Shut up.

Just because she's "against Israel" means she wants them to die. She said she understands why Palestinians do what they do, and that it's a good way to make a political statement, and in a way it is. She didn't say it was a good idea, just that they make their point. Alot of people on this board are "against the USA", but that doesn't mean they want us all to drop dead of gonorrea.

melancholia has been nothing but civil in that thread, and she wanted to end the conversation before you turned it into a big raving bitch fest. But it looks as if you already have. Congratulations.

of course it does. andrew pakula said he 'hates israel' and melancholia replied saying " *claps* ".

if you're against something it means you don't think it should exist. if you're against israel then you think israel shouldn't exist. if you don't think israel should exist then where would all the people that live in israel go? god knows. it's not stupid of mew to be offended by such a rash statement. there's a difference between criticizing a certain policy or a certain government coalition or person, but when you take and use it as a rationale for why an entire nation should be wiped off the planet, well that's when you're taking it too fucking far. oh and she was being perfectly civil? not really.

as for as suicide bombers, she didn't just say it was a 'good way to make a political statement' she said in that thread and in any other thread that you 'can't blame them' and what they're doing is 'perfectly justifiable' or some shit. i also think it's offensive when you justify shit like that. you can explain it but when you justify it, well that's just taking it too fucking far also.

and yes, if you are 'against the usa' you're saying the same fucking thing. you want the usa to be wiped off the planet. same fucking thing. it's retarded to be 'against' a nation like you'd be 'against' welfare or 'against' abortion. it's fucking stupid. a nation just can't be written away by some fucking decree.

and she was not perfectly civil. replying to a thread that has nothing whatsoever to do with israel with *claps* and 'i'm glad someone agrees and is just as *against israel* as i am'

that in and of itself is not 'civil'. it is absolutely disrespectful of my thread and of every fucking israeli on the planet. and no, it already was a raving bitch fest. she wanted to close the thread so i couldn't reply to her ridiculous accusations.

saying you're 'against israel' is just like saying you're 'against palestine' or 'against france' or 'against black people'. it's a fucking stupid thing to say. end of story.

Samsa · 11-01-2002, 12:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BeautifulLoser

eeh. I'm just in a very irritable mood right now, and her completely unwarranted, irrational insults and comments just seem so ironic to me.

\
you know what seems irrational to jme? the fact that you have the audacity to accuse me of having 'completely unwarranted, irrational insults'

yeah. that's unwarranted when some ugly goth whore replies to MY thread talking about how much she hates israel for no fucking reason. what's unwarranted is another fat ugly butch whore replies to MY thread insulting me for no other reason except she's' 'irritable' which is no fucking excuse at all, considering this thread has nothing to fucking do with you. completely unwarranted, irrational insults? why don't you look in the mirror. or are you scared you'll break it. stupid bitch.

DeviousJ · 11-01-2002, 09:51 AM

Suze, I think you're trying to start an argument where there wasn't one in the first place. If you're going to assume that when people say they're 'against Israel' they mean the country shouldn't exist, then you need to get them to explicitly state what they mean before you jump in to attack them. You can't just use your own inferences to form another person's viewpoint, especially from such a short and ambiguous phrase.

jenn · 11-01-2002, 10:05 AM

i'm going to clear a few things up, and again, request that someone close this thread. suze's rampant immaturity and neurotic behaviour is getting out of hand.

1. I support Palestein. I don't believe Israel should be a country. I don't believe that Jews need their own country.

2. I don't have a problem with Jews living in Palestein, I disagree with the methods used to obtain that land. Which was through violence and forcing innocent Palestinian civilians to leave their homes.

3. Both sides of the conflict have done wrong. I think Sharon and Arafat are both idiots. They are both hypocrites.

4. Just because I do not support the state of Israel, doesn't mean that I'm happy when Israelis die. Jesus Christ, I don't get off on this stuff. I think it's terrible the situation there. I happen to have Palestinian friends...what they have to endure is appaling.

5. My analogy to the Native American issue is a valid one. Currently, Native Americans have country to call their own. What was done in the Middle East to Palestein would be the same as if the government of [insert name of uninvolved country here] gave all the land in [insert name of US state here] to Native Americans. That would never fly in America, yet we support it overseas because it doesn't affect us.

BeautifulLoser · 11-01-2002, 10:07 AM

*skims over ranting*

People have different views than you. People have different definitions of words than you too, apparently, because you take "against" to a very extreme point...

Just say "ok, we disagree" and get it overwith. You're not going to change her mind, she's not going to change yours, and I'm forever convinced that you are the most emotionally unstable person I've ever come into contact with, internet or otherwise. But that's ok... that's who you are.

I love the fact that if some newb came here posting the way you do, they'd be called a troll right off the bat and not even given a second thought. That's the original reason I ever made fun of your posts, was because I thought you were a troll. The words "bitch, cunt, whore, etc" didn't start being used until you started.. therefore I react.

Eeh, whatever, I've said way too much. I'm turning into you when it comes to long pointless posts.

jenn · 11-01-2002, 10:12 AM

...and the reason I asked the other thread to close was because every rational human being involved saw that it was going nowhere, and there was no reason to continue it. you turned it into an incohearant flame war.

scouse_dave · 11-01-2002, 11:29 AM

at last, someone who can clear up the whole mess in the middle-east

Andrew_Pakula · 11-01-2002, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Samsa

of course it does. andrew pakula said he 'hates israel' and melancholia replied saying " *claps* ".

You really need to re-read the other thread, I never once said "i hate isreal". I said "I don't like Isreal"

There is a huge difference, don't be putting words in my mouth.

Affect · 11-01-2002, 11:55 AM

Straight up, you stupid crazy bitch.

scouse_dave · 11-01-2002, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Andrew_Pakula
There is a huge difference, don't be putting words in my mouth.

but that's her forté!

Samsa · 11-01-2002, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by melancholia

5. My analogy to the Native American issue is a valid one. Currently, Native Americans have country to call their own. What was done in the Middle East to Palestein would be the same as if the government of [insert name of uninvolved country here] gave all the land in [insert name of US state here] to Native Americans. That would never fly in America, yet we support it overseas because it doesn't affect us.

yeah if your reasoning is correct, if the palestinians went and took land back from israel they'd be just like the native americans knocking on america's door and wanting their land back! yeah! doublestandard4u?

Samsa · 11-01-2002, 12:46 PM

and listen, do i have to explain it one more time?

this total bitch comes into MY thread, that has nothing whatsoever to do with israel, she says:

"Re: Re: question for andrew P.

quote:
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Originally posted by Andrew_Pakula

5. I don't like Isreal.....
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It's fucking great that I'm not the only one here who doen't like or support Israel. *claps*"

like or support it in what exactly? in existing? why don't you fucking understand?

you can't get around this, moron. you are completely imposing a double standard. you say israel gained their land through violence and it's wrong, well every country gains their land through violence. and one of the main reasons there was even violence in the first place is because they were *attacked* by neighbors who didn't think *sharing* was a fair way to go about doing it (of course there are other sides to the issue but i think that's overall a fair evaluation).

secondly, you can't say 'the jews shouldn't be allowed to have their own country, but they should be allowed to live there', because i seriously don't think you can have one without the other. the destruction of israel = the murder of all the jews living in israel. seriously.

if you don't fucking think it should have existed in the first place, well boo hoo, but it exists now and it's stupid to not take that into account. you can't write away a country without having major consequences. suddenly you feel sorry for these poor palestinians who were violently exiled from their home, well what do you think happened to the jews? (over and over and over again, i might add). you can't add that fucking double standard. it's a double standard.

Affect · 11-01-2002, 12:53 PM

OKAY????

Samsa · 11-01-2002, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DeviousJ
Suze, I think you're trying to start an argument where there wasn't one in the first place. If you're going to assume that when people say they're 'against Israel' they mean the country shouldn't exist, then you need to get them to explicitly state what they mean before you jump in to attack them. You can't just use your own inferences to form another person's viewpoint, especially from such a short and ambiguous phrase.

she's said she thinks the country shouldn't exist. sorry you can't comprehend that i am capable of making inferences that basically consist of someone saying 'israel shouldn't exist' and me concluding that this person thinks israel shouldn't exist.

and that's not the fucking point. i don't really care about melancholia's warped views about the world or what have you. i just resent it when she hijacks my thread. as if i fucking care. actually i never want to get into a debate about this again it's so fucking pointless. and actually i posted something very interesting a couple days ago and no one fucking replied.

why not? because they're fucking sensationalists. i posted some article basically about what happened with sharon -- you know parliament broke apart and shit--yet no one wants to discuss it because they'd rather focus on big fucking pointless universal issues such as when a country isn't entitled to take what it's won. she uses the fucking 'native american' argument or the 'pagan' argument to prove that israel shouldn't exist, when it's sort of obvious you can just as easily use it to prove that palestine shouldn't exist either. or hmm. tibet. yeah how about tibet. so obviously, considering it's such a pointless hypothetical situation it's sort of obvious it's not really useful of an analogy.

Affect · 11-01-2002, 12:56 PM

Plus, they could have stopped being jews if they didn't want to deal with all of the shit. It comes with the territory.

OKAY???!

Samsa · 11-01-2002, 12:58 PM

Samsa · 11-01-2002, 01:01 PM

A Brief History of Israel and Palestine and the Conflict
Ami Isseroff
Contents
Introductory Note
Geography and Early History
The Jewish Kingdoms
From Roman to Ottoman Rule
The British Mandate
Modern History
Recent Events

Introductory Note
This very brief account is intended to provide an overview and introduction to Palestinian and Israeli history, and the history of the conflict. It is unlikely that anyone has written or will write an "objective" and definitive summary that would be accepted by everyone, but it is hoped that this document will provide a fair introduction.

It would be wrong to try to use this history to determine "who is right," though many "histories" have certainly been written by partisans of either side, with precisely that purpose in mind. Those who are interested in advocacy, in collecting "points" for their side, cannot find the truth except by accident. If they find it, and it is inconvenient, they will bury it again. This account intends to inform, and nothing more. Two separate documents explain how I think we should gather facts and learn about the conflict, and the importance of words in making Middle East history, as well as in understanding it. A timeline provides details of many events not discussed in this history, and source documents provide additional **********. Serious students will also refer to the bibliography for more information and different viewpoints.

Geography and Early History
The land variously called Israel and Palestine is a small, (10,000 square miles at present) land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. During its long history, its area, population and ownership varied greatly (see Maps). The present state of Israel formally occupies all the land from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean ocean, bounded by Egypt in the south, Lebanon in the north, and Jordan in the East. The recognized borders of Israel constitute about 78% of the land. The remainder is divided between land occupied by Israel since the 1967 6-day war and the autonomous regions under the control of the Palestinian autonomy. The Gaza strip occupies an additional 141 square miles south of Israel along the sea coast, and is mostly under the control of the Palestinian authority with small areas occupied by Israeli settlements.

Palestine has been settled continuously for tens of thousands of years. Fossil remains have been found of Homo Erectus, Neanderthal and transitional types between Neanderthal and modern man. Archeologists have found hybrid Emer wheat at Jericho dating from before 8,000 B.C., making it one of the oldest sites of agricultural activity in the world. Amorites, Canaanites, and other Semitic peoples related to the Phoenicians of Tyre entered the area about 2000 B.C. The area became known as the Land of Canaan.

The Jewish Kingdoms
The archeological record indicates that the Jewish people evolved out of native Cana'anite peoples and invading tribes. Some time between about 1800 and 1500 B.C., a Semitic people called Hebrews (hapiru) left Mesopotamia and settled in Canaan. According to the Bible, Moses led the Israelites, or a portion of them, out of Egypt. Under Joshua, they conquered the tribes and city states of Canaan. King David conquered Jerusalem about 1000 B.C. and established an Israelite kingdom over much of Canaan including parts of transjordan, but the kingdom was divided into Judea in the south and Israel in the north following the death of David's son, Solomon. Jerusalem remained the center of Jewish sovereignty and of Jewish worship whenever the Jews exercised sovereignty over the country in the subsequent period, up to the Jewish revolt in 133 AD.

The Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 or 721 B.C. The Babylonians conquered Judah in 587 or 586 B.C. destroyed Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, and exiled a large number of Jews. About 50 years later, the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylonia. Cyrus allowed a group of Jews from Babylonia to rebuild and settle in Jerusalem. However, a large number of Jews remained in Babylonia, forming the first Jewish Diaspora. After the reestablishment of a Jewish state or protectorate, the Babylonian exiles maintained contact with authorities there. The Persians ruled the land from about 530 to 331 B.C. Alexander the Great then conquered the Persian Empire. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., his generals divided his empire. One of these generals, Seleucus, founded a dynasty that gained control of much of Palestine about 200 B.C. At first, the new rulers, called Seleucids, allowed the practice of Judaism. But later, one of the kings, Antiochus IV, tried to prohibit it. In 167 B.C., the Jews revolted under the leadership of the Maccabeans and either drove the Seleucids out of Palestine or at least established a large degree of autonomy, forming a kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem. The kingdom received Roman "protection" when Judah Maccabee was made a "friend of the Roman senate and people" in 164 B.C.

From Roman to Ottoman Rule
About 61 B.C., Roman troops under Pompei invaded Judah and sacked Jerusalem. The land came under Roman control. The Romans called the area Judea. Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem in the early years of Roman rule. Roman rulers put down Jewish revolts in about A.D. 70 and A.D. 132. In A.D. 135, the Romans drove the Jews out of Jerusalem. The Romans named the area Palaestina, at about this time. The name Palaestina, which became Palestine in English, is derived from Herodotus, who used the term Palaistine Syria to refer to the entire southern part of Syria, meaning "Philistine Syria." Most of the Jews who continued to practice their religion fled or were forcibly exiled from Palestine, eventually forming a second Jewish Diaspora. However, Jewish communities continued to exist in Galilee, the northernmost part of Palestine. Palestine was governed by the Roman Empire until the A.D. 300's and then by the Byzantine Empire. In time, Christianity spread to most of Palestine. The population consisted of Jewish converts to Christianity and paganism, peoples imported by the Romans, and others who had probably inhabited Palestine continuously.

During the A.D. 600's, Muslim Arab armies moved north from Arabia to conquer most of the Middle East, including Palestine. Muslim powers controlled the region until the early 1900's. The rulers allowed Christians and Jews to keep their religions. However, most of the local population gradually accepted Islam and the Arab-Islamic culture of their rulers. Jerusalem became holy to Muslims as the site where, according to the Qur'an, Muhammed ascended to heaven after a miraculous overnight ride on his horse Al-Buraq. The al-Aqsa mosque was built on the site generally regarded as the area of the Jewish temples.

The Seljuk Turks gained control of Jerusalem in 1071. Seljuk rule of Palestine lasted less than 30 years. Christian crusaders from Europe captured Jerusalem in 1099. A great slaughter of the Jewish and Muslim defenders followed, and no Jews were allowed to live in Jerusalem. The crusaders held the city until 1187, when the Muslim ruler Saladin attacked Palestine and took control of Jerusalem.

In the mid-1200's, Mamelukes based in Egypt established an empire that in time *******d the area of Palestine. Arab-speaking Muslims made up most of Palestine's population. Beginning in the late 1300's, Jews from Spain and other Mediterranean lands settled in Jerusalem and other parts of the land. The Ottoman Empire defeated the Mamelukes in 1517, and Palestine became part of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Sultan invited Jews fleeing the Catholic inquisition to settle in the Turkish empire, including several cities in Palestine.

In 1798, Napoleon entered the land. The war with Napoleon and subsequent misadministration by Egyptian and Ottoman rulers, reduced the population of Palestine. Arabs and Jews fled to safer and more prosperous lands. Subsequent reorganization and opening of the Turkish Empire to foreigners restored some order. They also allowed the beginnings of Jewish settlement under various Zionist and proto-Zionist movements. Both Arab and Jewish population increased. By 1880, about 24,000 Jews were living in Palestine, out of a population of about 400,000.. At about that time, the Ottoman government imposed severe restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchase. These were evaded in various ways by Jews seeking to colonize Palestine.

In the nineteenth century, the emancipation of Jews in Europe and nationalist ideas were blended with traditional Jewish ideas about Israel and Zionism. The marriage of "love of Zion" with modern nationalism took place first among the Sephardic (Spanish and Eastern) Jewish community of Europe, where the tradition of living in the land of the Jews and return to Zion had remained practical goals rather than messianic aspirations, and where Hebrew was a living language. Rabbi Yehuda Alcalay, who lived in what is now Yugoslavia, published the first Zionist writings in the 1840s. Though practically forgotten, these ideas took root among a few European Jews. Beginning in the late 1800's, oppression of Jews in Eastern Europe catalyzed emigration of Jews to Palestine. The Zionist movement became a formal organization in 1897 with the first Zionist congress in Basle, organized by Theodore Herzl. Herzl's grandfather was acquainted with the writings of Alcalay, and it is very probable that Herzl was influenced by them. The Zionists wished to establish a "Jewish Homeland" in Palestine under Turkish or German rule. They were not concerned about the Arab population, which they ignored, or thought would agree to voluntary transfer to other Arab countries. In any case, they envisioned the population of Palestine by millions of European Jews who would soon form a decisive majority in the land. The Zionists established farm communities in Palestine at Petah Tikva, Zichron Jacob, Rishon Letzion and elsewhere. Later they established the new city of Tel Aviv, north of Jaffa. At the same time, Palestine's Arab population grew rapidly. By 1914, the total population of Palestine stood at about 700,000. About 615,000 were Arabs, and 85,000 to 100,000 were Jews. (See population figures).

During World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman Empire joined Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allies. An Ottoman military government ruled Palestine. The war was hard on both Jewish and Arab populations, owing to outbreaks of cholera and typhus, however, it was more difficult for the Jews. For a time, the Turkish military governor ordered internment and deportation of all foreign nationals. A large number of Jews were Russian Nationals. They had been able to enter Palestine as Russian nationals because of the concessions Turkey had granted to Russian citizens, and they had used this method to overcome restrictions on immigration. They had also maintained Russian citizenship to avoid being drafted into the Turkish army. Therefore, large number of Jews were forced to flee Palestine during the war. A small group founded the NILI underground that fed intelligence information to the British, in order to free the land of Turkish rule. The Turks eventually caught members of the NILI group.

Britain and France planned to divide the Ottoman holdings in the Middle East among themselves after the war. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 called for part of Palestine to be under British rule, part to be placed under a joint Allied government, and for Syria and Lebanon to be given to the France. However, Britain also offered to back Arab demands for postwar independence from the Ottomans in return for Arab support for the Allies and seems to have promised the same territories to the Arabs. In 1916, Arabs led by T.E. Lawrence and backed by Sharif Husayn revolted against the Ottomans in the belief that Britain would help establish Arab independence in the Middle East. The Arabs later claimed that Palestine was *******d in the area promised to them, but the British denied this.

The British Mandate
In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. The declaration stated Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, without violating the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities. The declaration was the result of lobbying by the small British Zionist movement, especially by Dr. Haim Weizmann, who had emigrated from Russia to Britain, but it was motivated by British strategic considerations. Paradoxically, perhaps, a major motivation for the declaration may have been the belief, inspired by anti-Semitism, that international Jewry would come to the aid of the British if they declared themselves in favor of a Jewish homeland, and the fear that the Germans were about to issue such a declaration. After the war, the League of Nations divided much of the Ottoman Empire into mandated territories. In 1920, Britain received a provisional mandate over Palestine, which would extend west and east of the River Jordan. The mandate, based on the Balfour declaration, was formalized in 1922. The British were to help the Jews build a national home and promote the creation of self-governing institutions. An agency, later called "The Jewish Agency for Palestine" was created to represent Jewish interests in Palestine to the British and to promote Jewish immigration. In 1922, the British declared that the boundary of Palestine would be limited to the area west of the river. The area east of the river, called Transjordan (now Jordan), was made a separate British mandate. The British hoped to establish self-governing institutions in Palestine, as required by the mandate. However, the Arabs would not accept any proposals for such institutions if they *******d Jews, and so no institutions were created. The Arabs wanted as little as possible to do with the Jews and would not participate in municipal councils, nor even in the Arab Agency that the British wanted to set up. Ormsby-Gore, undersecretary of state for the colonies concluded, "Palestine is largely inhabited by unreasonable people."

The Arabs opposed the idea of a Jewish national home, considering that the areas now called Palestine were their land. The Arabs felt they were in danger of dispossession by the Zionists, and did not relish living under Jewish rule. Arabs lobbied the American King-Crane commission, in favor of annexation of the Palestine mandate area to Syria, and later formed a national movement to combat the terms of the Mandate. At the instigation of US President Wilson, the King Crane commission had been dispatched to hear the views of the inhabitants. At the commission hearings, Aref Pasha Dajani expressed this opinion about the Jews, "Their history and their past proves that it is impossible to live with them. In all the countries where they are at present, they are not wanted...because they always arrive to suck the blood of everybody..."

By this time, Zionists had recognized the inevitability of conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. David Ben Gurion, who would lead the Yishuv (the name for the Jewish community in Palestine) and go on to be the first Prime Minister of Israel, told a meeting of the governing body of the Jewish "Yishuv" in 1919 "But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question...We as a nation, want this country to be ours, the Arabs as a nation, want this country to be theirs."

In the spring of 1920, spring of 1921 and summer of 1929, Arab nationalists instigated riots and pogroms against Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, Jaffa and Haifa. The major instigators were Haj Amin El-Husseini, later Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and Arif -El Arif, a prominent Palestinian journalist. The pogroms led to evacuation of the Jewish community of Hebron. About half the 5,000 residents of the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem were forced to flee as well. The violence led to the formation of the Hagana Jewish self-defense organization.

Jewish immigration swelled in the 1930s, driven by persecution in Eastern Europe and Nazi Germany. In 1936 the Arab Revolt led by Haj Amin Al-Husseini broke out. Hundreds of Arabs and Jews were killed. The Husseini family killed both Jews and members of Palestinian Arab families opposed to their hegemony. The Yishuv responded with both defensive measures, and with random terror and bombings of Arab civilian targets, perpetrated by the Irgun (Irgun Tsvai Leumi or "Etsel,"). Etsel was the military underground of the right-wing dissident "revisionist group" headed first by Vladimir Jabotinsky, who seceded from the Zionist movement, and later by Menahem Begin. The British took drastic steps to curtail the riots. Husseini fled to Iraq and then to Nazi Germany, where he subsequently broadcast for the Axis powers and organized SS death squads in Yugoslavia. The Peel and Woodhead commissions of 1937 and 1938 recommended partitioning Palestine into a small Jewish state and a large Arab one. The commissions recommendations also *******d voluntary transfer of Arabs and Jews to separate the populations. The Jewish leadership considered the plan but the Arab leadership rejected the plan outright. In response to the riots, the British began limiting immigration and the 1939 White Paper decreed that 15,000 Jews would be allowed to enter Palestine each year for five years. Thereafter, immigration would be subject to Arab approval.

During World War II (1939-1945), many Palestinian Arabs and Jews joined the Allied forces. Jews had a special motivation for fighting the Nazis. In 1941 the British freed Jewish Haganah underground leaders in a general amnesty, and they joined the British in fighting the Germans. After the war, it was discovered that the Germans had murdered about six million Jews in Europe, in the Holocaust. These people had been trapped in Europe, because virtually no country would allow them to flee the Nazis. The British restriction of immigration to Palestine had cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The Jews were now desperate to bring the remaining Jews of Europe, about 250,000 people being held in displaced persons camps, to Palestine. The Haganah attempted to bring immigrants into Palestine illegally. The Zionist underground groups, in particular the Irgun and Lehi ("Stern gang") dissident terrorist groups, used force to try to drive the British out of Palestine by bombings and by kidnapping and murder of British personnel. The US and other countries brought pressure to bear on the British to allow immigration. The Arabs brought pressure on the British to block it. The British found Palestine to be ungovernable and returned the mandate to the United Nations, successor to the League of Nations.

The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended that Palestine be divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state. The commission called for Jerusalem to be put under international administration The UN General Assembly adopted this plan on Nov. 29, 1947 as UN Partition Resolution (GA 181), owing to support of both the US and the Soviet Union, and in particular, the personal support of US President Harry S. Truman. Many factors contributed to Truman's decision to support partition, including domestic politics and intense Zionist lobbying, no doubt. Truman wrote in his diary, however, "I think the proper thing to do, and the thing I have been doing, is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell."

The Jews accepted the UN decision, but the Arabs rejected it. The resolution divided the land into two approximately equal portions in a complicated scheme with zig-zag borders (see Map). At the time of partition, slightly less than half the land in all of Palestine was owned by Arabs, slightly less than half was "crown lands" belonging to the state, and about 8% was owned by Jews or the Jewish Agency. There were about 600,000 Jews in Palestine, almost all living in the areas allotted to the Jewish state or in the internationalized zone of Jerusalem, and about 1.2 million Arabs. The allocation of land by Resolution 181 was intended to produce two areas with Jewish and Arab majorities respectively. Jerusalem and environs were to be internationalized. The relatively large Jewish population of Jerusalem and the surroundings, about 100,000, were geographically cut off from the rest of the Jewish state. It soon became evident that the scheme could not work. Mutual antagonism would make it impossible for either community to tolerate the other.

The Arab League, at the instigation of Haj Amin Al-Husseini, declared a war to rid Palestine of the Jews. In fact however, the Arab countries each had separate agendas. Abdullah, king of Jordan, had an informal and secret agreement with Israel, negotiated with Golda Meir, to annex the portions of Palestine allocated to the Palestinian state in the West Bank, and prevent formation of a Palestinian state. Syria wanted to annex the northern part of Palestine, including Jewish and Arab areas. Fighting and violence broke out immediately, including ambushes of transportation, a Palestinian attempt to blockade Jewish Jerusalem, riots such as the Haifa refinery riots, and massacres that took place at Gush Etzion and in Deir Yassin. The British did little to stop this fighting, but the scale of hostilities was limited by lack of arms and trained soldiers on both sides.

1948- 2000
On May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent State of Israel, and the British withdrew from Palestine. The next day, neighboring Arab nations attacked Israel. Palestinian attempts to set up a real state were blocked by Egypt and Jordan. Jordan kept to its agreement not to invade areas allocated to the Jewish state, but Syria and Egypt did not. In his book, "In the Fields of Phillistia," Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery recounts how the Egyptian army attempted a massed armored strike against Tel Aviv. While Jordan did not invade Jewish territory, the Arab Legion blocked convoys to besieged Jewish Jerusalem from its fortified positions in Latroun. Jerusalem was to have been internationalized according to UN Resolution 181. Despite initial setbacks, better organization and intelligence successes, as well as timely clandestine arms shipments, enabled the Jews to gain a decisive victory. The Arabs and Palestinians lost their initial advantage when they failed to organize and unite. When the fighting ended in 1949, Israel held territories beyond the boundaries set by the UN plan - a total of 78% of the area west of the Jordan river. The UN made no serious attempt to enforce the internationalization of Jerusalem, which was now divided between Jordan and Israel, and separated by barbed wire fences and no man's land areas. The rest of the area assigned to the Arab state was occupied by Egypt and Jordan. Egypt held the Gaza Strip and Jordan held the West Bank. About 780,000 Arabs fled or were driven out of Israel and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries. The Arab countries refused to sign a permanent peace treaty with Israel. Consequently, the borders of Israel established by the armistice commission never received de jure (legal) international recognition.

The UN arranged a series of cease-fires between the Arabs and the Jews in 1948 and 1949. UN Resolution 194 called for cessation of hostilities, return of refugees who wish to live in peace. Though hostilities ceased, the refugee problem was not solved. Negotiations broke down because Israel refused to readmit more than a small number of refugees. The USSR, initially in favor of the Zionist state, now aligned itself with the Arab countries. Despite continued US support for the existence of Israel, US aid to Israel was minimal and did not ******* military aid during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were equipped with surplus arms purchased third hand and with French aircraft and light armor. The Arab countries, especially Syria and Egypt, began receiving large quantities of Soviet military aid. The Arab League instituted an economic boycott against Israel that was partly honored by most industrial nations and continued in force until the 1990s.

Following the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt in 1954 by the free officers headed by Naguib and Nasser, Egypt made some moves toward peace with Israel. However, in 1954, an Israeli spy ring was caught trying to blow up the US Information agency and other foreign institutions in Egypt. The goal was to create tension between the US and Egypt and prevent rapprochement. In Israel, both Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon and Prime Minister David Ben Gurion disclaimed responsibility for the action, and blamed each other. This incident came to be known variously as "the Lavon affair" and "the shameful business." Egypt became suspicious of Israeli intentions, and began negotiating to purchase large quantities of arms. When they were turned down by the West, the Egyptians turned to the Eastern bloc countries and concluded a deal with Czechoslovakia. Egyptian President Gamal Nasser also closed the straits of Tiran and Suez Canal to Israeli shipping. Israeli strategists believed that Egypt would go to war or force a diplomatic showdown as soon the weapons had been integrated, and began looking for a source of arms as well. Israel concluded an arms deal with France. A series of border incursions by Palestinians and by Egyptians from Gaza evoked increasingly severe Israeli reprisals, triggering larger raids. The assessment of Israeli "activists" like Moshe Dayan was that Israel should wage preventive war before Egypt had fully integrated the new weapons.

In the summer of 1956, Israel, France and Britain colluded in a plan to reverse the nationalization of the Suez canal. Israel would invade the Sinai and land paratroopers near the Mitla pass. Britain and France would issue an ultimatum, and then land troops ostensibly to separate the sides. The plan was carried out beginning October 29, 1956. Israel swiftly conquered Sinai. The US was furious at Israel, Britain and France, and forced them to withdraw from Sinai. Israeli troops remained in Sinai for many months. Israel subsequently withdrew under pressure from the UN and in particular the United States. Israel obtained guarantees that international waterways would remain open to Israeli shipping from the US, and a UN force was stationed in Sinai.

Tension began developing between Israel in the 1960s. Israel began to implement its National Water Carrier plan, which pumps water from the Sea of Galilee to irrigate south and central Israel. The project was in accordance with a plan proposed by US envoy Eric Johnston in 1955, and agreed to by Arab engineers. Arab governments refused to participate however, because of the implied recognition of Israel. In secret meetings, Israel and Jordan agreed to abide by the water quotas set by the plan. In several summit conferences beginning in 1964, Arab leaders decided on establishment of the PLO, declared their resolve to destroy Israel, and decided to divert the sources of the Jordan river that feed the Sea of Galilee, to prevent Israel from implementing the water carrier plan. The Syrians and Lebanese began to implement the diversions. Israel responded by firing on the tractors and equipment doing the work in Syria, using increasingly accurate and longer range guns as the Syrians moved the equipment from the border. This was followed by Israeli attempts to cultivate the demilitarized zones (DMZ) as provided in the armistice agreements. Israel was within its rights according to the armistice agreements, but Moshe Dayan claimed many years later that 80% of the incidents were deliberately provoked. The Syrians responded by firing in the DMZs. When Israelis responded in force, Syria began shelling Israeli towns in the north, and the conflict escalated into air strikes. The USSR was intent on protecting the new Ba'athist pro-Soviet government of Syria, and represented to the Syrians and Egyptians that Israel was preparing to attack Syria. As tension rose, Syria appealed to Egypt, believing the claim of the USSR that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian border. The claim was false and was denied by the UN.

Against this **********, in Mid-May, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser again closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping and dismissed the UN peace force from the Sinai Peninsula. The United States failed to live up to its guarantees of freedom of the waterways to Israel. A torrent of bellicose rhetoric issued from Arab capitals and in the UN. At the UN, PLO Chairman Ahmed Shukhairy announced that "if it will be our privilege to strike the first blow" the PLO would expel from Palestine all Zionists who had arrived after 1917 and eliminate the state of Israel. Nasser said on May 27, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight." On May 28, he added: "We will not accept any...coexistence with Israel...Today the issue is not the establishment of peace between the Arab states and Israel....The war with Israel is in effect since 1948."

On May 30, Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt, readying itself for war. King Hussein stated: "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations."

On June 4, Iraq likewise joined a military alliance with Egypt and committed itself to war. On May 31, the Iraqi President Rahman Aref announced, "This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear--to wipe Israel off the map."

Despite the bellicose rhetoric, analysts such as Avi Shlaim (The Iron Wall) and others believe that each country was dragged into the conflict by inter-Arab rivalry and did not contemplate a war. According to Michael Oren, recently released documents show that the Arab side had planned an attack on Israel and then cancelled it when it was compromised by leaks.

US and Israel assessments were that Israel would win any war handily, despite the huge superiority in armor, aircraft, and troops favoring the combined forces of the Arab countries. On paper, Israel had almost as many aircraft as the Egyptians, but the Israeli aircraft were mostly old, and even the Super-Mirages were no match for the Mig-21 fighters acquired by Egypt from the USSR. On paper, the IDF had a huge number of "tanks." However, while Syrians and Egyptians were equipped with late model Soviet heavy tanks, most of the Israeli "tanks" were in fact tiny French AMX anti-tank vehicles, and the heavy tanks were refurbished WWII Sherman tanks fitted with diesel engines. The Israeli and Jewish public, and some in the government, believed that there was a mortal threat to Israel.

Israel certainly did not want war. Ben Gurion berated Chief of Staff Itzhak Rabin for making aggressive moves that had, according to him, escalated the conflict and gotten Israel into trouble. Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol appeared hesitant, and stuttered in a dramatic radio speech to the nation. Under great public pressure from opposition parties, a unity government was formed. Foreign Minister Abba Eban tried in vain to obtain from the US a guarantee that they would reopen the straights of Tiran. At first, President Johnson promised an international flotilla, and warned Israel not to attack on its own. However, the US was unable to initiate any international action, and reversed its position, hinting broadly that Israel would have to handle the problem itself.

Israel attacked the Egyptians beginning on June 5, 1967. In the first hours of the war, Israel destroyed over 400 enemy aircraft to achieve total air superiority. Israeli troops quickly reconquered the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza. Jordanian artillery began firing at Jerusalem on the first day of the war, and then the Jordan Legion advanced and took over the headquarters of the UN (Governor's house - Armon Hanatziv ) in Jerusalem. After warning King Hussein repeatedly to cease fire, Israel conquered the West Bank and Jerusalem. During the first days of the war, Syrian artillery based in the Golan Heights pounded civilian targets in northern Israel. After dealing with Egypt, Israel decided to conquer the Golan heights, despite opposition and doubts of some in the government, including Moshe Dayan, who had been appointed defense minister. (see map of territories occupied in 1967) Israel agreed to a cease fire on June 11, 1967. UN Resolution 242 called for negotiations of a permanent peace between the parties, and for Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in 1967.

The 1967 6-Day war changed the perceived balance of power in the Middle East and created a new reality. Israel had acquired extensive territories - the Sinai Desert, the Golan heights and the West Bank, that were several times larger than the 1948 borders. According to analysts such as Fouad Ajami, the disastrous defeat of the Arabs spelled the end of the Pan-Arab approach advocated by Gamal Abdul Nasser and contributed to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. It also brought about a million Palestinian Arabs under Israeli rule. After the war, the fate of the Palestinians came to play a large role in the Arab-Israeli struggle. The Fatah organization (The Movement for Liberation of Palestine) was founded about 1957 (though it was formalized much later), and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was founded in 1964. Both had the declared aim of destroying Israel. After the 6-day war, Ahmad Shukairy, who had headed the PLO, was replaced as Chairman by Yasser Arafat, who headed the Fatah. In time, the Palestine Liberation Organization became recognized by all the Arab states as the representative of the Palestinian people. Israel strongly opposed the PLO because of its terrorist acts against Jews and because of its charter aims of destroying the state of Israel and expelling Jews who had arrived after 1917.

The Israeli government originally declared that it was ready to return all of the territories except Jerusalem in return for peace treaties with its Arab neighbors. However, religious and nationalist groups began agitating for annexation and settlement of areas in the West Bank and Golan heights. An increasing number of settlements were established as it became evident that Arab states would not negotiate with Israel. A decisive turning point was the Khartoum Arab summit, in August and September of 1967, which seemed to shut the door on the possibility of negotiations with Israel or recognition of Israel in any form. A second landmark was the "Zionism is Racism" resolution passed by the United Nations in 1975, which gave credibility in Israel to claims of Israeli extremists that opposition to settlements was opposition to Israel, and that Israel was essentially alone in a hostile world and could expect no justice. Though the resolution was repealed in 1991, similar sentiments surfaced at a UN conference in Durban in 2001.

Settlement expansion became official Israeli policy after the opposition revisionist Likud party came to power in 1977, and continued during the Oslo accords. As of 2001, about 200,000 Israelis had settled in areas of the West Bank and Gaza, and an additional 200,000 were settled in areas of Jerusalem and environs conquered in 1967. About 15,000 Jews were settled in the Golan heights taken from Syria.

Egyptian president Nasser launched the war of attrition on the Suez canal, breaking the cease fire. In Israel, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol had died and was replaced by the hawkish Golda Meir. The sides fought to a standstill in increasingly bloody exchanges that *******d participation by Soviet pilots on the Egyptian side. Under US pressure, a second cease fire was signed in August 1970, with both sides declaring officially their acceptance of UN Resolution 242. Nasser died shortly thereafter, and was replaced by Anwar Sadat. Sadat tried repeatedly to interest Israel in partial peace deals in return for partial Israeli withdrawal, and the US and UN tried to mediate peace through the offices of Gunnar Jarring. Nothing came of these peace efforts, partly owing to the stubborn attitude of Israeli PM Golda Meir, who insisted that Israeli troops would not budge until there was a peace agreement in place. Sadat continued to alternate peace plans with threats of war, but he was not taken seriously in Israel. Israeli army intelligence as well as the government were convinced that Israel had total military superiority and that Egypt would not dare to attack until it had rebuilt its army. Therefore, the best course seemed to be to wait until the Arab countries met Israel's terms.

In October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched another war against Israel. The Israelis were caught by surprise. Syrians made serious inroads in the Golan and Egyptians crossed the canal and retook a strip of the Sinai peninsula. Israel reconquered the Golan and advanced into Syria. In Sinai, Israel troops crossed the canal. General Ariel Sharon, disobeying the orders of cautious superiors, ran ahead of logistics to develop the bridgehead and cut off the entire Egyptian third army. Cease-fires ended most of the fighting within a month. As a result of the war, the Golda Meir was forced to resign as Prime Minister in Israel, making way for Izhak Rabin, who had been Israeli ambassador to the US and previously Chief of staff of the IDF.

Subsequent shuttle diplomacy by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger resulted in partial Israeli withdrawals from the Sinai peninsula, under much less favorable terms than could have been obtained before the war. Right-wing opposition leader Menahem Begin was adamant in his opposition to any withdrawals. In 1978, Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David framework agreements, leading to a Peace treaty in 1979. Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982.

A revolt by the PLO against the Jordanian government led to their expulsion from Jordan in 1970. PLO fighters streamed into Lebanon and turned it into a base for attacks on Israel. The Syrians entered Lebanon beginning in 1976 ostensibly to protect the Christians and the fragile Lebanese multi-ethnic multi-religious constitution, but in fact, in realization of Syrian claims to Lebanon as part of Greater Syria. An Israeli invasion in 1982 resulted in expulsion of the PLO from Lebanon to Tunis. The invasion was the initiative of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who had decided to smash the power of the PLO. However, the war aroused furor in Israel as the army exceeded the official war aims, and brought down the wrath of the international community on Israel after right-wing Lebanese Phalangist militia allied to Israel committed massacres in the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps. Israel subsequently extricated itself slowly from Lebanon, but the war had created a fanatic Shi'ite anti-Israel terror group in Lebanon, the Hizbolla. As Israel withdrew, Lebanon became essentially a satellite of Syria.

While the fortunes of the PLO waned, Palestinians in the occupied territories took their fate into their own hands. Beginning in 1987, a revolt called the Intifadeh began in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Following the Gulf war, US pressure, the ongoing break up of the USSR and favorable international opinion made it possible to convene negotiations toward settlement of the Palestinian problem. In 1993 and 1995, Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Declaration of Principles and The Oslo Interim Agreement. Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994. The peace process with the Palestinians led to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and most cities and towns of the West Bank by early 1996. As the Israelis withdrew, Palestinians took control of these areas. About 97% of the Palestinians in these areas were nominally under Palestinian rule, but the area controlled by the Palestine National Authority amounted to about 8% of the land. In January 1996, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian-controlled parts of the West Bank elected a legislature controlled by the Fatah faction, with Yasser Arafat as Chairman (titled "Rais" - "President" by the Palestinians) to administer these areas.

Recent Events

Negotiations for a final settlement broke down in July, 2000. Palestinians insisted that refugees should have the right to return to Israel, which would produce an Arab majority in Israel. Israel insisted on annexing key portions of the Palestinian areas and on leaving most settlements intact, and offered only a limited form of Palestinian statehood. Palestinian violence erupted on September 28, 2000, triggered by a visit of Ariel Sharon to the temple mount in Jerusalem, which is also the site of the Al-Aqsa mosque holy to Muslims.

Violence continued despite into 2001 and 2002, despite attempts by the Mitchell commission and others to restore calm. The terror attack on the World Trade Center in the US on September 11, 2001, had direct repercussions for the Israel-Palestine conflict. On the one hand, Arab and Islamic countries tried to leverage on the need for their cooperation in the war against terror to win concessions against Palestine. On the other, many Americans began to view terrorist actions in a new light, as organizations such as Hamas and Hizbulla came to be linked with the Al-Qaeada group of Osama Bin-Laden. Particularly damaging for the Palestinians were the demonstrations held in favor of Bin Laden, and evidence linking a boatload of illegal arms intercepted by Israel, the Karine A, with Iranian support for the PNA. The boat was intercepted on January 3, 2002, on the day that US envoy Anthony Zinni arrived to attempt to arrive at a settlement. Against this **********, the US and EU seemed to give Israel wider latitude for action against the Palestinians. Israel made increasing incursions into Palestinian areas, and confined PNA Chairman Arafat to his compound in Ramalah. but the Palestinians stepped up attacks on soldiers as well as suicide bombings.

On March, 12, 2002 the UN Security Council passed resolution 1397, calling on the sides to stop the violence once again, mentioning the peace place plan of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, and for the first time calling for creation of a Palestinian State alongside Israel. Yasser Arafat declared a cessation of violence several times, but this did not seem to affect the frequency or severity of suicide bombings and ambushes. The Israelis, for their part, continued with their policy of assassinating wanted men in the Palestinian areas. During the last week in March, as General Zinni was again coming to the Middle East, the Palestinians launched a successful suicide attack almost every day, in addition to many unsuccessful ones. A blast at the Park Hotel in Nethanya killed 27 people as they were celebrating Passover. Israel launched a massive raid intended to root out terror infrastructure, including reoccupation of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm and other towns. Hundreds of Palestinians may have been killed, including many reported civilian casualties. Israel alleges that only about 50 were killed in Jenin, mostly members of the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs suicide brigades. These figures appear to be borne out by independent sources, but they are not accepted or believed in the Arab world. Suicide attacks abated, but did not stop. During the course of the fighting, Israel captured numerous documents demonstrating that Yasser Arafat had personally approved the organization of terror cells, and that the PNA treasury had approved payments for suicide-bomber explosive belts. The Israelis captured or killed numerous persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. The IDF also destroyed records, building, roads and other innocent civilian infrastructure of banks, NGOs and other organizations clearly not involved in terror. Later in the fighting, the IDF managed to locate Marwan Barghouti, head of the Fatah Tanzeem, and to capture him. Israel claims it has evidence of complicity by Barghouti in numerous terrorist acts, and it plans to put him on trial. Critics of the Israeli military operation, called "Defensive Wall," argued that it would be impossible to put an end to terror by military activity in the absence of progress toward a peaceful solution.

The violence continued despite the arrival of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who needed quiet in Israel and Palestine to leave the US free hand to organize an alliance against Iraq. Powell's mission did not accomplish anything. He was unable to get the Israelis to withdraw completely from they areas reoccupied, nor could he get the Palestinians to agree to a cease fire. Demonstrations and public outrage in Arab countries, fueled by charges of a massacre, prompted UN action. UN resolution 1402 directed that Israel withdraw from the territories immediately. By the time Powell had left, Israel had withdrawn from some towns, but Yasser Arafat was still imprisoned in Ramallah, and the Israelis were besieging the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where armed Palestinians had sought refuge from the IDF. The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1403, expressing dismay that resolution 1402 had not been implemented. Palestinians charged that the Israelis had committed a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp. On April 19, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1405, calling for an an impartial investigative team to be send to determine the truth of Palestinian allegations. Israel objected to the composition of the team. Israel at first agreed to the investigation, but later backtracked and blocked it, claiming that the composition and procedures of the investigation would be unfair to Israel, and that the UN had reneged on initial agreements about the investigation. Opposition to the investigation was fueled by Israeli memories of the recent Durban conference as well as by the infamous Zionism is Racism resolution of the UN, which was recalled repeatedly in public debate. Israeli PM Ariel Sharon visited the US in May of 2002, under pressure from the US administration to advance a peace program that could be acceptable to Palestinians and the Arab states. The two discussed plans for a regional summit to be held later in 2002, and the Israelis presented documents that they claim prove the involvement of Yasser Arafat and the PNA in terrorist activities. News of a suicide bombing committed by the Hamas came while Bush and Sharon were meeting, causing the Israeli PM to cut the visit short and return to Israel.

The sieges of Muqata and Church of Nativity were also resolved in May. Militants in the Church of Nativity were exiled to Cyprus and Europe. The wanted men in the Muqata compound in Ramalah were jailed in Jericho. The head of the PFLP allegedly coordinated a suicide attack from his cell in Jericho. At the end of May, under pressure for democratic reform, Yasser Arafat signed into law the Basic Law or constitution of the Palestinian transitional state. The law states that Palestinian law will be based on the principles of Islamic law (Sha'ariyeh).

In June, following another wave of Palestinian suicide attacks, Israeli forces essentially reoccupied all of the West Bank, though the Israeli government was quick to claim that the re-occupation would not continue indefinitely, but later indicated otherwise. President Bush made a long awaited speech on Middle East policy calling for a Palestinian state, but insisting on democratic reform of the Palestine National Authority.

In August and September, several attempts at Palestinian cease fire initiatives were foiled by refusal of extremist groups to participate and by Israeli acts such as the killing of Salah Shehadeh, head of the military wing of the Hamas in a missile attack on Gaza that cost the lives of 13 civilians. Shehadeh was replaced by Mohamed Deif. August and September witnessed a six week respite from major suicide and terror attacks, facilitating an Israeli-Palestinian plan to return full Palestinian authority in Gaza and Bethlehem first. However, this fizzled after several violent attacks in Gaza. At the beginning of September, Israeli security forces foiled several suicide attack attempts and detected a truck laden with 1300 pounds of explosives and gas tanks, that was to be used by Palestinians in a suicide attack.

The PLC convened in September to approve the new cabinet chosen in line with reform efforts. PLC cabinet members refused to ratify the cabinet until Yasser Arafat would allow a Prime Minister to share power. Instead, Arafat agreed to elections in January, 2003, despite Israeli occupation. Arafat's popularity was at a nadir.

The period of relative calm came to an end with suicide bombings in Umm El Fahm and in a Tel-Aviv bus. The Israeli government proceeded with an attack on Gaza including entry into Gaza city and besieged Yasser Arafat and an estimated 200 others in the Muqata compound in Ramala. Israel demanded that Palestinians give up wanted persons who had taken refuge in the Muqata including Palestinian preventive security boss Tawfiq Tirawi. Arafat remained defiant. Israel destroyed all buildings in the compound except the main one, promising not to harm Arafat. After a rumor was spread that Israel was about to blow up the Muqata, widespread demonstrations took place in the West Bank and Gaza, resulting in four deaths. The USA exerted pressure on Israel to stop destroying buildings in the Muqata and to withdraw. Despite a UN resolution, September 24, 2002, Israel continued the siege. Arafat's popularity with Palestinians soared.

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Samsa · 11-01-2002, 01:04 PM

"It is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. For that reason the Beyond Blame Project sets its scope on the larger picture, celebrating differences of opinion about, and creative approaches towards, our common goals. This site highlights people, actions, organizations or statements that reflect the spirit of the following goals or practices:

Going beyond the "blame game" politics that squash any hope for productive discussions about the Middle East,
Backing the existence of both Israel as a Jewish nation and the Palestinian's aspirations for their own state,
Attempting to recognize but move through our anger and despair to operate from a state of generosity and hope,
Refusing to be pitted against either the Palestinian or Israeli people,
Interrupting both anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism, in other and in themselves, and
Allying themselves with others who feel the same.

HIGHLIGHT:

This site is for those voices who are speaking beyond the limited confines and interests of their own individual communities. There are many internal struggles going on within Jewish, Muslim & Christian Arab, and allied communities to find an accurate and moral voice on these issues. Those struggles are important, but not the subject of this site. Instead of helping a community in their time of reflection, these internal struggles once made public can play further into the blame game. Again, these internal discussions are significant, but they have a place elsewhere online.

Finally, we all feel an urge to blame. But blame is just a feeling, albeit a powerful one, often confusing us into demonizing those who may hold the same goals in common. We want to support a more sophisticated and effective approach to the horrors and heartbreak produced through this conflict. The Beyond Blame Project is not about avoiding tension, but working through our differences in a spirit of cooperation. We need to look back at our hard history, take pride in our people, and learn from everyone's mistakes. We need to accept the past, move through our desire to point fingers, and go beyond blame.

http://www.beyondblame.info/

Samsa · 11-01-2002, 01:05 PM

Talking Points versus Understanding
Most people do not pay attention to politics and history until they intrude rudely on their every day lives. When a dramatic event occurs, a few will rush off to find sources of information that will explain, in “capsule summaries,” what has happened. Media and Web sites provide many glib and conflicting opinions, designed to boost circulation and present a viewpoint, not to inform. The opinion makers are polarized according their political bias, and rarely change their ideas because of facts. They assemble facts to suit opinions. Depending on whom you read, the latest disaster is the fault of the Jews, the Moslems, the infidels, the Arabs or the United States. The latest crisis, whatever it is, has inevitably proven both that the anti-Zionist Noam Chomsky and the pro-Zionist Thomas Friedman were absolutely right in their analyses. The Gush-Shalom movement, the Yesha Council, United Rabbis for Greater Israel, Hamas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all knew and warned of the impending disaster and all of their contradictory analyses and solutions could have averted it if adopted in time. Likewise the Zionist Organization of America and the Arab League can explain to you exactly how they predicted what would happen, and how it came about because nobody listened to them. If you do not believe it, read what they write.

You may get reinforcement for your ideas from such summaries. You may get “talking points” that will allow you to become part of the great parade of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations that substitute for thinking and dialog in our region. In this way, you can impress your friends and dialog partners with pseudo-facts or one line quotes from Gandhi or Herzl or Haj Amin El Husseini or Osama Bin Laden and win arguments: “The Jews became a nation in 1312 BC - there is no such thing as a Palestinian People” or “Jabotinsky said that we have to broom all the Arabs out of Palestine.” It may impress people, but it is probably not a way to find the truth. It is not a way to solve the problem. It is a way to become part of the problem, a soldier in the armies of hate and dysinformation.

If you are new to the Middle East and want to find out “who is right?” and what to do about it in three easy lessons, you will be either disappointed or misled. To get a fair idea, you will need to study the original sources, not summaries prepared by the ZOA or the Arab League or “experts” and understand their meaning in the context in which they were produced. The way to knowledge and understanding is a long and arduous process, and that “understanding” must keep changing as events unfold, and as we learn more. That is why so much of the materials at MidEastWeb are not concise summaries or political proclamations but resources: news from different sources, maps, bibliography and historical documents.

Read the sources with care and skepticism. Be wary of catchwords such as “terrorist,” ‘Apartheid regime,” “Fascist,” and “ethnic cleansing.” In their original meaning they are perfectly good words. For example, a member of the German National Socialist Workers (Nazi) party, or a follower of Benito Mussolini, was a self-declared fascist. Some Zionist dissident radicals expressed sympathy with Fascism, and some Palestinian leaders such as the Mufti Haj Amin El-Husseini, were Nazi sympathizers and collaborators. However, the mainstream Zionist movement and the current leaders of Israel, as well as present-day Palestinian leaders, do not advocate fascism. When they are misapplied in a deliberate way, the purpose of these terms is not to inform you but to confuse the issues and substitute emotion for reason. Be especially wary of quotes taken out of context.

If any one person, viewpoint or source had the “straight story” about the Middle East, it would an easy matter to solve all our problems. It is easy to read a biased summary of “talking points” regarding any issue and march off on a crusade, disseminating more biased opinion and rallying followers to the attack. We have far too much of that in the Middle East. If you read a “fact,” consider the source. If you hear a news story, check that that it is true. Getting the facts straight is the beginning of knowledge. Making sure that everyone gets the same facts - all of them - is the beginning of dialog and understanding.

http://www.mideastweb.org/understandingmiddleeast.htm

Samsa · 11-01-2002, 01:08 PM

What's in a Word?

The Israel-Palestinian Conflict and the World of Words

The area of Israel and Palestine is not rich in resources. We have our famous conflict. It is our conflict, and we are happy to export it. It is our second greatest export.

What is our greatest export? It is not oil, as there is no petroleum here to export. But we have words, and have had words since words first created civilization in the middle east. The middle east is famous for exporting words. The Old Testament, the New Testament, the propaganda of two sides in the conflict, and fittingly enough, software, are our greatest exports in all history. For the Bible and the propaganda are programs for humans, and people and history are "programmed" by them, as well as by that other great program for the human computer, the Qur'an.

The Word told Abraham to go to Canaan, and the Word told the Hebrews that Canaan is theirs. The words were written down in a book, and the book was the Old Testament and it became holy to the Jews, who built a kingdom in Jerusalem.

Then there were more Words, and the Words said that Muhamed is the prophet of Allah, and that Mohamed had made Jerusalem holy to Islam. The Christians received words too. Bishop Eusebius of Caesaria wrote that the Jews were cursed and could not rebuild Jerusalem. It was against the will of God.

History was written like a television series from the old days. "Unfortunate minorities" got bad parts - cleaning people, servants, Christ killers and money lenders. The Jews were written out of the coming episodes entirely. "A world without Jews," wrote Marx. Every culture and people would have its own home - self determination, but the Jews were to be written out of modern history. They didn't play well. "A moribund civilization," wrote Arnold Toynbee.

The Jews for their part, kept repeating the words "Next Year in Jerusalem" each year, and asking God to return them to their home each day. The words became a program for action. Theodore Herzl wrote a book, a nineteenth century utopia in the style of nineteenth century utopias, impossible places. The book was called The Jewish State. A very little book, a pamphlet, by a powerless man. Herzl organized a congress in Basle. More words, and a tiny resolution. He wrote in his diary in 1897, "...at Basle I founded the Jewish State... if not in 5 years then in 50..." The Zionists tended to write the Arabs out of the action. They didn't fit, didn't play well, and spoiled the plot.

The words of the powerless man became flesh. Here is one way of telling about it:

Europeans came to colonize Palestine in the 19th century.

Here is another way:

Jews returned to the Land of Israel after 2,000 years.

Which one is true? It is the same fact, but it leads to different conclusions about "why," and it leads to a different way of programming people.

Arthur Balfour wrote a small letter, the Balfour Declaration, in 1917. Palestine became a homeland for the Jews. Thirty years later, in 1947, the UN wrote another document, General Assembly Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine, and Herzl's words came true.

Words and symbols are taken seriously here. A right-wing Zionist tract explains the reason that justifies the bloodshed: "Jews pray facing Jerusalem, Muslims pray with their backs to Jerusalem." It is not written in jest. Gulliver, in all his travels in Swiftian satire, never found a more exotic reason for killing people.

Never mind what the fact is, it depends what it is called. Is it "legitimate?" If the Palestinian house is "illegal," then you can demolish it. If the settlement is "illegal" then you can blow up the children who live in it.

A man loses his brother to the enemy. He detonates an explosive charge in a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem, killing himself and a dozen others. Is he a "terrorist?" a "militant?," a "freedom fighter?" or a "martyr?" Is the suicide attack "terror" or "resistance?" If the suicide attack is in Manhattan, is it also "resistance?" A tank destroys a house with children in it, because the house also *******s people set to explode themselves in a suicide attack. Is it "conducting a defensive operation" or a "war crime?" Is a leader a "partner for peace" or a "terrorist?" If we add "war criminal" to his name and repeat it consistently, does it change the facts? Are the Zionists or the Palestinians just regular folks, or are they the same as the Nazis? Does it change the facts of what people did in history? Perhaps not, but it changes the actions we will take; it changes what people will do in the history they are making now.

The words are also used to redraw history. Nowhere else is it more true that the pen is mightier than the sword. Nowhere is "creative writing" more "creative." Partisans, intent on stirring up hate, crank out fraudulent interviews with Ariel Sharon, in which he states that he wants his soldiers to rape Palestinian girls and kill more Palestinians. A bit of satire by an Israeli writer is turned into a fact. The excuse given for the lie is, "There is no doubt, that what has been expressed in the interview is the kind of dangerous thinking shared by Sharon and showing through in his policies." Reality is shaped by art. First the reality is reinvented, then it is acted upon. We are acting out a trashy historical novel, a comic book version of reality.

What is not told, is as important as what is told. The pen of the Jewish extremist makes the massacre of Deir Yassin disappear - over a hundred dead people are banished to nowhere. The pen of the Palestinian partisan erases the siege of Jerusalem and the Arab invasion of 1948. A writer in the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram, waves his magic pen and the Holocaust disappears. None of it happened. The Jewish extremist erases the Palestinian refugees. Reality is rearranged for the convenience and needs of our ever-present defense mechanisms.

Time and again, words create reality and program actions. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery of the Czarist secret police, is enshrined in the charter of the Hamas, and propels Muslim extremists to their death. Osama Bin Laden wrote his Fatwas against America, and the words toppled mighty buildings. The Mufti of Jerusalem said "The Jews are destroying the holy Mosque of Al Aqsa" and the riots of 1929 began. The same rumor started bloodier riots in 1997, and again in September 2000 it created the "Martyrs of Al-Aqsa."

At this moment, as is usual in our area, a battle is raging. The words are fighting alongside the tanks and the bombs. Partisans are busy rewriting history. Suicide bombers are being written out by one side, civilian casualties are being written out by the other. They do not play well. They will not sell. Words are changing history, and people are being programmed to act on the words, never mind what happened. So the words help to create reality.

The words are not meant to be aesthetic. They are tired, grating, writing. The same adjectives and pejorative words appear a dozen times in a hundred words. For some reason, the hacks cannot write "Arafat" without writing "terrorist" and they cannot write "Ariel Sharon" in less than four words: "War Criminal Ariel Sharon." The words are meant to program violence in human computers. Computer programs do not make good reading. They are bad literature. It is worse reality. The words programmed all these impossible things we see before us, good and bad. Can we use the words to "program" Israel and Palestine for peace?

Copyright 2001 -2002, by MidEastWeb for Coexistence

Andrew_Pakula · 11-01-2002, 01:54 PM

Don't post long articles that nobody is going to read, you already posted the links before and thats good enough.

Any article you post is just going to be what your own bias is.

Just because you are posting articles doesn't mean you are right or makes you correct.

I am sure if I actually cared enough I could find tons of articles to counter whatever you say but I am not going to bother.

In fact there is no real point for this thread to be open, the other thread was closed for a reason - This arguement isn't going anywhere.

Please stop trying to get the last word in.

10-31-2002, 08:54 PM	#6
BeautifulLoser Socialphobic Location: Middle of somewhere Posts: 13,754	You're being a ranting raving bitch right now. Shut up. Just because she's "against Israel" means she wants them to die. She said she understands why Palestinians do what they do, and that it's a good way to make a political statement, and in a way it is. She didn't say it was a good idea, just that they make their point. Alot of people on this board are "against the USA", but that doesn't mean they want us all to drop dead of gonorrea. melancholia has been nothing but civil in that thread, and she wanted to end the conversation before you turned it into a big raving bitch fest. But it looks as if you already have. Congratulations. Last edited by BeautifulLoser : 10-31-2002 at 09:49 PM.

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10-31-2002, 08:46 PM	#2
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Samsa i have no desire to be respectful of a fat stupid whore who claps when people make references to the murder of israeli citizens. fuck you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I clapped at the statement that someone else besides me on this message board did not support Israel. Not at the muder of Israeli's. Read the thread. ***** you're 'against israel' meaning you're 'against its existence' meaning would you clap tomorrow if syria and iraq went in their and wiped the 'shitty little country' of the face of the planet? it's fucking stupid to be against a country. that's fucking retarded.

10-31-2002, 08:47 PM	#3
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Samsa so if you had something about 'i hate niggers' i am supposed to respect the fact that some people just have different opinions? i asked pakula a question referring to israelites, he replied thinking i was referring to a different set of israelites. you're the one who turned it into a debate because his statement in the firs tplace was just a misconception of what i had been saying in the first place. it didn't need a big debate over israel, just me to explain the biblical reference. hmm insults get me nowhere? how about you've been insulting me ever since i was born. i don't want to have an intelligent debate with an unintelligent person. i'm not going to have an intelligent debate with anyone until they stop making inflamatory remarks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So what? A debate started...and if you read this thread, you're the one making inflamatory remarks. You're the one who looks ignorant here. I'm not going to get into another debate on who is more intelligent... I really don't care. Saying "I don't support Israel" is VERY different from saying "I hate niggers". I haven't been insulting you... I did in one or two threads after getting sick of being flamed for no reason by you. I'm being very civil... you're not. You're making a scene for no reason. ** you didn't say 'i don't support israel' you said 'i am against israel' meaning as i said before you are against its existence and the existence of the millions of LIVES that exist IN israel. including arab lives. get a fucking clue.

10-31-2002, 08:49 PM	#4
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Samsa actually i was referring to the 'my roommate always leaves her door open' thread which was months ago. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If it was months ago, then why does it still matter to you? It's a message board. We all have our bad days. I don't even remember that thread. ***U once again your historical consciousness is fucked up, even regard to the last twenty minutes. why did i bring it up in the first place? because you said some stupid shit statement like 'suze hatese me for some reason shrug ' i then, in response to your retarded litlte comment, explained why i 'hate' you or rather, in case you fucking forgot, why the animosity arose (i made a sarcastic reply to some annoying reply tyou made to my post, one of many yet i had succeeded in just ignoring you previously yet this time i was just too in a bad mood to ignore you ) so i explained to everyone why there is 'animosity' between us and it's not because 'suze hates me for some reason shrug '; it's because you're a psychotic BIPOLAR BITCH who flies off her handle when someone makes thei mplication that they don't appreciate your fucking presence. so that's why i fucking hate you. so sorry you don't understand why it's 'relevant', well it's only relevant because you brought it up, you dumb bitch.

10-31-2002, 08:50 PM	#5
ZERO Apocalyptic Poster Posts: 1,497	Samsa have you ever been to the MIddle East?

11-01-2002, 09:51 AM	#12
DeviousJ CORNFROST Location: GUREITO DESU YO Posts: 24,888	Suze, I think you're trying to start an argument where there wasn't one in the first place. If you're going to assume that when people say they're 'against Israel' they mean the country shouldn't exist, then you need to get them to explicitly state what they mean before you jump in to attack them. You can't just use your own inferences to form another person's viewpoint, especially from such a short and ambiguous phrase.

11-01-2002, 10:05 AM	#13
jenn Minion of Satan Location: new york Posts: 6,325	i'm going to clear a few things up, and again, request that someone close this thread. suze's rampant immaturity and neurotic behaviour is getting out of hand. 1. I support Palestein. I don't believe Israel should be a country. I don't believe that Jews need their own country. 2. I don't have a problem with Jews living in Palestein, I disagree with the methods used to obtain that land. Which was through violence and forcing innocent Palestinian civilians to leave their homes. 3. Both sides of the conflict have done wrong. I think Sharon and Arafat are both idiots. They are both hypocrites. 4. Just because I do not support the state of Israel, doesn't mean that I'm happy when Israelis die. Jesus Christ, I don't get off on this stuff. I think it's terrible the situation there. I happen to have Palestinian friends...what they have to endure is appaling. 5. My analogy to the Native American issue is a valid one. Currently, Native Americans have country to call their own. What was done in the Middle East to Palestein would be the same as if the government of [insert name of uninvolved country here] gave all the land in [insert name of US state here] to Native Americans. That would never fly in America, yet we support it overseas because it doesn't affect us.

11-01-2002, 10:07 AM	#14
BeautifulLoser Socialphobic Location: Middle of somewhere Posts: 13,754	skims over ranting People have different views than you. People have different definitions of words than you too, apparently, because you take "against" to a very extreme point... Just say "ok, we disagree" and get it overwith. You're not going to change her mind, she's not going to change yours, and I'm forever convinced that you are the most emotionally unstable person I've ever come into contact with, internet or otherwise. But that's ok... that's who you are. I love the fact that if some newb came here posting the way you do, they'd be called a troll right off the bat and not even given a second thought. That's the original reason I ever made fun of your posts, was because I thought you were a troll. The words "bitch, cunt, whore, etc" didn't start being used until you started.. therefore I react. Eeh, whatever, I've said way too much. I'm turning into you when it comes to long pointless posts.

11-01-2002, 10:12 AM	#15
jenn Minion of Satan Location: new york Posts: 6,325	...and the reason I asked the other thread to close was because every rational human being involved saw that it was going nowhere, and there was no reason to continue it. you turned it into an incohearant flame war.

11-01-2002, 11:29 AM	#16
scouse_dave Minion of Satan Location: Manchester Posts: 5,089	at last, someone who can clear up the whole mess in the middle-east

11-01-2002, 11:55 AM	#18
Affect Fuck Location: xxx Posts: 5,360	Straight up, you stupid crazy bitch.

11-01-2002, 12:46 PM	#21
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	and listen, do i have to explain it one more time? this total bitch comes into MY thread, that has nothing whatsoever to do with israel, she says: "Re: Re: question for andrew P. quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Andrew_Pakula 5. I don't like Isreal..... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's fucking great that I'm not the only one here who doen't like or support Israel. claps" like or support it in what exactly? in existing? why don't you fucking understand? you can't get around this, moron. you are completely imposing a double standard. you say israel gained their land through violence and it's wrong, well every country gains their land through violence. and one of the main reasons there was even violence in the first place is because they were attacked by neighbors who didn't think sharing was a fair way to go about doing it (of course there are other sides to the issue but i think that's overall a fair evaluation). secondly, you can't say 'the jews shouldn't be allowed to have their own country, but they should be allowed to live there', because i seriously don't think you can have one without the other. the destruction of israel = the murder of all the jews living in israel. seriously. if you don't fucking think it should have existed in the first place, well boo hoo, but it exists now and it's stupid to not take that into account. you can't write away a country without having major consequences. suddenly you feel sorry for these poor palestinians who were violently exiled from their home, well what do you think happened to the jews? (over and over and over again, i might add). you can't add that fucking double standard. it's a double standard.

11-01-2002, 12:53 PM	#22
Affect Fuck Location: xxx Posts: 5,360	OKAY????

11-01-2002, 12:56 PM	#24
Affect Fuck Location: xxx Posts: 5,360	Plus, they could have stopped being jews if they didn't want to deal with all of the shit. It comes with the territory. OKAY???!

11-01-2002, 12:58 PM	#25
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	OKAY

11-01-2002, 01:04 PM	#27
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	"It is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. For that reason the Beyond Blame Project sets its scope on the larger picture, celebrating differences of opinion about, and creative approaches towards, our common goals. This site highlights people, actions, organizations or statements that reflect the spirit of the following goals or practices: Going beyond the "blame game" politics that squash any hope for productive discussions about the Middle East, Backing the existence of both Israel as a Jewish nation and the Palestinian's aspirations for their own state, Attempting to recognize but move through our anger and despair to operate from a state of generosity and hope, Refusing to be pitted against either the Palestinian or Israeli people, Interrupting both anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism, in other and in themselves, and Allying themselves with others who feel the same. HIGHLIGHT: This site is for those voices who are speaking beyond the limited confines and interests of their own individual communities. There are many internal struggles going on within Jewish, Muslim & Christian Arab, and allied communities to find an accurate and moral voice on these issues. Those struggles are important, but not the subject of this site. Instead of helping a community in their time of reflection, these internal struggles once made public can play further into the blame game. Again, these internal discussions are significant, but they have a place elsewhere online. Finally, we all feel an urge to blame. But blame is just a feeling, albeit a powerful one, often confusing us into demonizing those who may hold the same goals in common. We want to support a more sophisticated and effective approach to the horrors and heartbreak produced through this conflict. The Beyond Blame Project is not about avoiding tension, but working through our differences in a spirit of cooperation. We need to look back at our hard history, take pride in our people, and learn from everyone's mistakes. We need to accept the past, move through our desire to point fingers, and go beyond blame. http://www.beyondblame.info/

11-01-2002, 01:05 PM	#28
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	Talking Points versus Understanding Most people do not pay attention to politics and history until they intrude rudely on their every day lives. When a dramatic event occurs, a few will rush off to find sources of information that will explain, in “capsule summaries,” what has happened. Media and Web sites provide many glib and conflicting opinions, designed to boost circulation and present a viewpoint, not to inform. The opinion makers are polarized according their political bias, and rarely change their ideas because of facts. They assemble facts to suit opinions. Depending on whom you read, the latest disaster is the fault of the Jews, the Moslems, the infidels, the Arabs or the United States. The latest crisis, whatever it is, has inevitably proven both that the anti-Zionist Noam Chomsky and the pro-Zionist Thomas Friedman were absolutely right in their analyses. The Gush-Shalom movement, the Yesha Council, United Rabbis for Greater Israel, Hamas, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all knew and warned of the impending disaster and all of their contradictory analyses and solutions could have averted it if adopted in time. Likewise the Zionist Organization of America and the Arab League can explain to you exactly how they predicted what would happen, and how it came about because nobody listened to them. If you do not believe it, read what they write. You may get reinforcement for your ideas from such summaries. You may get “talking points” that will allow you to become part of the great parade of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations that substitute for thinking and dialog in our region. In this way, you can impress your friends and dialog partners with pseudo-facts or one line quotes from Gandhi or Herzl or Haj Amin El Husseini or Osama Bin Laden and win arguments: “The Jews became a nation in 1312 BC - there is no such thing as a Palestinian People” or “Jabotinsky said that we have to broom all the Arabs out of Palestine.” It may impress people, but it is probably not a way to find the truth. It is not a way to solve the problem. It is a way to become part of the problem, a soldier in the armies of hate and dysinformation. If you are new to the Middle East and want to find out “who is right?” and what to do about it in three easy lessons, you will be either disappointed or misled. To get a fair idea, you will need to study the original sources, not summaries prepared by the ZOA or the Arab League or “experts” and understand their meaning in the context in which they were produced. The way to knowledge and understanding is a long and arduous process, and that “understanding” must keep changing as events unfold, and as we learn more. That is why so much of the materials at MidEastWeb are not concise summaries or political proclamations but resources: news from different sources, maps, bibliography and historical documents. Read the sources with care and skepticism. Be wary of catchwords such as “terrorist,” ‘Apartheid regime,” “Fascist,” and “ethnic cleansing.” In their original meaning they are perfectly good words. For example, a member of the German National Socialist Workers (Nazi) party, or a follower of Benito Mussolini, was a self-declared fascist. Some Zionist dissident radicals expressed sympathy with Fascism, and some Palestinian leaders such as the Mufti Haj Amin El-Husseini, were Nazi sympathizers and collaborators. However, the mainstream Zionist movement and the current leaders of Israel, as well as present-day Palestinian leaders, do not advocate fascism. When they are misapplied in a deliberate way, the purpose of these terms is not to inform you but to confuse the issues and substitute emotion for reason. Be especially wary of quotes taken out of context. If any one person, viewpoint or source had the “straight story” about the Middle East, it would an easy matter to solve all our problems. It is easy to read a biased summary of “talking points” regarding any issue and march off on a crusade, disseminating more biased opinion and rallying followers to the attack. We have far too much of that in the Middle East. If you read a “fact,” consider the source. If you hear a news story, check that that it is true. Getting the facts straight is the beginning of knowledge. Making sure that everyone gets the same facts - all of them - is the beginning of dialog and understanding. http://www.mideastweb.org/understandingmiddleeast.htm

11-01-2002, 01:08 PM	#29
Samsa Banned Location: A theater near you Posts: 7,929	What's in a Word? The Israel-Palestinian Conflict and the World of Words The area of Israel and Palestine is not rich in resources. We have our famous conflict. It is our conflict, and we are happy to export it. It is our second greatest export. What is our greatest export? It is not oil, as there is no petroleum here to export. But we have words, and have had words since words first created civilization in the middle east. The middle east is famous for exporting words. The Old Testament, the New Testament, the propaganda of two sides in the conflict, and fittingly enough, software, are our greatest exports in all history. For the Bible and the propaganda are programs for humans, and people and history are "programmed" by them, as well as by that other great program for the human computer, the Qur'an. The Word told Abraham to go to Canaan, and the Word told the Hebrews that Canaan is theirs. The words were written down in a book, and the book was the Old Testament and it became holy to the Jews, who built a kingdom in Jerusalem. Then there were more Words, and the Words said that Muhamed is the prophet of Allah, and that Mohamed had made Jerusalem holy to Islam. The Christians received words too. Bishop Eusebius of Caesaria wrote that the Jews were cursed and could not rebuild Jerusalem. It was against the will of God. History was written like a television series from the old days. "Unfortunate minorities" got bad parts - cleaning people, servants, Christ killers and money lenders. The Jews were written out of the coming episodes entirely. "A world without Jews," wrote Marx. Every culture and people would have its own home - self determination, but the Jews were to be written out of modern history. They didn't play well. "A moribund civilization," wrote Arnold Toynbee. The Jews for their part, kept repeating the words "Next Year in Jerusalem" each year, and asking God to return them to their home each day. The words became a program for action. Theodore Herzl wrote a book, a nineteenth century utopia in the style of nineteenth century utopias, impossible places. The book was called The Jewish State. A very little book, a pamphlet, by a powerless man. Herzl organized a congress in Basle. More words, and a tiny resolution. He wrote in his diary in 1897, "...at Basle I founded the Jewish State... if not in 5 years then in 50..." The Zionists tended to write the Arabs out of the action. They didn't fit, didn't play well, and spoiled the plot. The words of the powerless man became flesh. Here is one way of telling about it: Europeans came to colonize Palestine in the 19th century. Here is another way: Jews returned to the Land of Israel after 2,000 years. Which one is true? It is the same fact, but it leads to different conclusions about "why," and it leads to a different way of programming people. Arthur Balfour wrote a small letter, the Balfour Declaration, in 1917. Palestine became a homeland for the Jews. Thirty years later, in 1947, the UN wrote another document, General Assembly Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine, and Herzl's words came true. Words and symbols are taken seriously here. A right-wing Zionist tract explains the reason that justifies the bloodshed: "Jews pray facing Jerusalem, Muslims pray with their backs to Jerusalem." It is not written in jest. Gulliver, in all his travels in Swiftian satire, never found a more exotic reason for killing people. Never mind what the fact is, it depends what it is called. Is it "legitimate?" If the Palestinian house is "illegal," then you can demolish it. If the settlement is "illegal" then you can blow up the children who live in it. A man loses his brother to the enemy. He detonates an explosive charge in a crowded bus stop in Jerusalem, killing himself and a dozen others. Is he a "terrorist?" a "militant?," a "freedom fighter?" or a "martyr?" Is the suicide attack "terror" or "resistance?" If the suicide attack is in Manhattan, is it also "resistance?" A tank destroys a house with children in it, because the house also *******s people set to explode themselves in a suicide attack. Is it "conducting a defensive operation" or a "war crime?" Is a leader a "partner for peace" or a "terrorist?" If we add "war criminal" to his name and repeat it consistently, does it change the facts? Are the Zionists or the Palestinians just regular folks, or are they the same as the Nazis? Does it change the facts of what people did in history? Perhaps not, but it changes the actions we will take; it changes what people will do in the history they are making now. The words are also used to redraw history. Nowhere else is it more true that the pen is mightier than the sword. Nowhere is "creative writing" more "creative." Partisans, intent on stirring up hate, crank out fraudulent interviews with Ariel Sharon, in which he states that he wants his soldiers to rape Palestinian girls and kill more Palestinians. A bit of satire by an Israeli writer is turned into a fact. The excuse given for the lie is, "There is no doubt, that what has been expressed in the interview is the kind of dangerous thinking shared by Sharon and showing through in his policies." Reality is shaped by art. First the reality is reinvented, then it is acted upon. We are acting out a trashy historical novel, a comic book version of reality. What is not told, is as important as what is told. The pen of the Jewish extremist makes the massacre of Deir Yassin disappear - over a hundred dead people are banished to nowhere. The pen of the Palestinian partisan erases the siege of Jerusalem and the Arab invasion of 1948. A writer in the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram, waves his magic pen and the Holocaust disappears. None of it happened. The Jewish extremist erases the Palestinian refugees. Reality is rearranged for the convenience and needs of our ever-present defense mechanisms. Time and again, words create reality and program actions. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery of the Czarist secret police, is enshrined in the charter of the Hamas, and propels Muslim extremists to their death. Osama Bin Laden wrote his Fatwas against America, and the words toppled mighty buildings. The Mufti of Jerusalem said "The Jews are destroying the holy Mosque of Al Aqsa" and the riots of 1929 began. The same rumor started bloodier riots in 1997, and again in September 2000 it created the "Martyrs of Al-Aqsa." At this moment, as is usual in our area, a battle is raging. The words are fighting alongside the tanks and the bombs. Partisans are busy rewriting history. Suicide bombers are being written out by one side, civilian casualties are being written out by the other. They do not play well. They will not sell. Words are changing history, and people are being programmed to act on the words, never mind what happened. So the words help to create reality. The words are not meant to be aesthetic. They are tired, grating, writing. The same adjectives and pejorative words appear a dozen times in a hundred words. For some reason, the hacks cannot write "Arafat" without writing "terrorist" and they cannot write "Ariel Sharon" in less than four words: "War Criminal Ariel Sharon." The words are meant to program violence in human computers. Computer programs do not make good reading. They are bad literature. It is worse reality. The words programmed all these impossible things we see before us, good and bad. Can we use the words to "program" Israel and Palestine for peace? Copyright 2001 -2002, by MidEastWeb for Coexistence

11-01-2002, 01:54 PM	#30
Andrew_Pakula Fine! I'll go make my own web site. With Blackjack, and Hookers... Actually, forget the web site. Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 3,820	Don't post long articles that nobody is going to read, you already posted the links before and thats good enough. Any article you post is just going to be what your own bias is. Just because you are posting articles doesn't mean you are right or makes you correct. I am sure if I actually cared enough I could find tons of articles to counter whatever you say but I am not going to bother. In fact there is no real point for this thread to be open, the other thread was closed for a reason - This arguement isn't going anywhere. Please stop trying to get the last word in.