Arafat right now says that if he had to go back, he would sign the peace agreement... Im not astounded...after all, 1500 of his own people and 600 Israeli people were put to death by missery and pain (on both side) yet, he after 22 months of fighting comes to think that he would have signed it!!! Why did you ignore Ehuds Warning to clamp down on rioting and violence? Why did you encourage the 'intifhada' even more after the Taba talks??? Thats dictatorship folks..its not beutiful...yet, so many anti-globalist activst support them! How dare they! Stupid idiotic, narcotic suburb white kids!
And if it's within the scope of the agreement, of course it should be. If Israel invaded, or reoccupied, or engaged in other some sort of embargo, that wouldn't be covered by the agreement and it wouldn't be a violation of the agreement to complain about it.
You can also put timetables for review into treaties as well. If the Palestinian state, for example, ended up being a model global citizen, then a lot of the oversight Israel would have could be cut back. And I can't think of a treaty where IDF doing a Berlin 1948 wouldn't be SOME kind of material breach. In any case, how good or bad the offer was isn't relevant, because the right of return and East Jerusalem were deal-breakers on both sides. If Sharon and Arafat were to sit down tomorrow morning, those would be topics one and two, and negotiations would go nowhere. Here's a historical parallel that may or may not be incredibly stupid - but let's say after the Mexican War, natives of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas embarked on a campaign of suicide bombings against the United States. Let's also say that the vast majority of the population of those states supported the suicide bombers, and pretty much went 24/7 on how they were in a holy war against the United States. Let's say that Mexico and Central America supported "el intifada" openly - although to complete the parallel let's say that Mexico didn't really want California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico back, as they're clearly more trouble than they're worth. You can pretty much picture Washington's reaction - and I haven't even gotten to the point where there's a good chance that the real goal of the Aztlanistas is to wipe out the United States and drive the Anglos into the Atlantic. The Palestinians are playing solo Russian roulette with an automatic. If some sort of weapon of mass destruction ever does hit Tel Aviv, then God help the Palestinians, because no one else will.
Kappa - as long as your profile says you're in Israel right now, could you please share some insights with us as to whether or not Labor has a shot in the next election? Ha'aretz has been hyping Amram Mitzna, the mayor of Haifa, as a possible serious challenger to Sharon/Bibi. Do you think he has a shot? Or is this just Ha'aretz shilling for the left? And where on the spectrum exactly is Mitzna? I've read he refers to himself as the "true successor to Rabin," but also is close allies with Ben-Eliezer, who is no leftist. What's the story? Also, what kind of support does he have among Israeli-Arabs, being that he's mayor of Haifa? Would they vote again in the next election if he runs? (Yes, in the "Israeli Apartheid State", the votes of the Arab population could determine the next election). I supported Barak up until the Taba fiasco (increasing the offer to Arafat even after submitting his resignation) and supported Sharon until now. However, at this point, I think he's accomplished everything he can militarily (reoccupying the West Bank, essentially forcing Arafat out of power, etc.), and doesn't seem to be too interested in diplomacy... so I think my allegiences may be shifting back to Labor. So please enlighten me.
As for one other point, why is it that Dubya refused to allow UN Monitors into Palestinian territories in December of 2001, an effort that was being pushed for by Arafat that may have stemmed the resurgence of terrorism?
Because the United Nations has been thoroughly and completely compromised in its dealings with the Israel-Palestine issue. Those idiots up in Justus Township thought the UN was plotting against them - they couldn't have, they were too busy plotting against Israel. I dare someone to tell me I'm exaggerating.
Dan; The next candidate for a possible labour leader might be Ben-Eliezer. He is very widely heard as being the predeccesor to Barak and perhaps he can in there upcoming labour convention. As for the Mayor of Haifa...I don't think he can be a leader. He can be in the partys high ranking, but it won't be any good, because he has many more people who are in this sort of position. Avrahum berg is also another good candidate..As for Barak, cause he can get a majority back too! But it is difficult to take out the Likud government because everytime there is a internal/external, mess they are there. When there was a skid in the peace process, for the first time ever, we saw the Right wing Likud be in front of the Peace process with Bibi and it was working fine, because he got to sign the Hebron and Wye River accords. So its all about internal labour discussions....Don't hold your breath up for the Haifa guy...Its Avrahum Burg, Barak or Ben Eliezer who will take over!
Mitre - The UN is not fair with Israel. They are very biase. UN is here for trust, but yet, they didn't prove any when they acted in Lebanon. In Early October 2000, Hezbollah was successful at kidnapping our soldiers! They had all UN customary Uniforms and a UN truck. Which led me to belive that the UN is helping a Terrorist/Gurrilla Organization, which can get Koffi Annan in the Hague for trial on this sort of misconduct. Instead, Koffi refuses to work on this issue and get 3rd party (which should be him) to deal with it. He sees that Hezbollah and Israel are the same thing, eventhough Israel proved a UN pullout in May 2000 and an end to a 22 year occupation of Lebanon. Instead, Hezbollah shifted its powers and got plenty more. Now; International powers run souther lebanon, growing Hashish and making there own martial law. And the UN lets this happen... The Taliban must have learned from Hezbollah alot!! Other than that, the UN might be a shield to palestinian terrorism, because Arafat doesn't want to stop the violence. Whatever he says on CNN Is not what he says in Arabic to his people. He encourages them to resist and to fight on!! The UN can work together like they did with terror organizations and make more choas than it really is. On a lighter note, UN can be the victim of a terror attack from the Palestinians, because it happened before, but it was for U.S Peacekeepers..... You never know when a nutcase goes into a UN monitored building and blows it up!! 500 dead.. now who is to blame there?
In response to the question of course settlements that are not annexable should be demolished. And settlements that are to be annexed must be right on the border. The issue here is not settlements and it has not been for some time. If Israel annexed the entire West Bank and Gaza the sad thing is that most Palestinians would be better off. Of course Israel is not yet up to western standards as of now within regards to treatment of ethnic minorities. But I think the comparison between how Israel treats its Arabs and how the Arab world treats its religious and ethnic minorities are centuries apart. With the way things are going now citizens of a newly annexed West Bank and Gaza would have more civil liberties and voting rights than they would in an independant Palestine. I am not advocating annextion of the whole territories. Obviously this not only threatens the Palestinian culture but also the Jewish culture of Israel. But.. it is not as if waving a magic wand and making settlements dissapear will satisify the Palestinian terrorist movement. We must let Palestine on its own.. and when a terrorist infrastructure is destroyed.. independance can be granted. Palestine will most likely fall the way of most of the Arab world into despotic autocracy. But.. once again this is the responsibility of the Palestinian people to shape their own future. Eliminating illegal settlements helps Palestine move along towards independance... but it is what Palestine becomes after independance that will be the real struggle and bigger battle to fight.
Shah, the problem is that Israel wanted to have them at minorities, of course! But the big part about everything is the 2 states that Gaza and the West Bank Belong too... We did want a peaceful resolution to this. UN made it and called it Resolution 242 and 338 where it says clearly that Israel must leave the 'territory' not stating which territory, because in the 1967 Armistice Agreement, Israel had a big chunk of the East Bank...and gave it when the Jordanians signed...Dumb move for Israel, but in the later text...Jordan never really attacked us again in 1973 Yom Kippour war...or any other wars. We couldn't just annexx the territory because it belong to them. And most people there are Palestinians and looking at the demography, Israel will be overthrown due to huge public majority and had lived under an Autocratic regime. Not until 1988, did the late King Hussein make it clear that the WEST BANK has no nationalistic intrest in Jordan, meaning that between 1984-1988 Jordan and Israel had secret meeting to turrn over the west bank for peace, but it fell on deaf ears mostly cause of Gaza and some other small things. So we couldn't just annex a whole part..And it didn't say which territory to give, meaning it didn't signify that we had to go back to the 1967 or 1948 borders or nothing!
Others have mentioned the basic reason, that the UN has an atrocious record in that region, but let me give two examples so that you don't perceive it as some sort of jewish paranoia. In Lebanon, UN "monitors" videotaped Hezbollah kidnapping Israeli soldiers. For months the UN denied the existance of the tape, then spent a few more months stonewalling the Israelis before giving it to them. They effectively signed the death warent for those soldiers. An even better example is 1967. UN peacekeepers essentially served to allow Egypt to build its army up to attack Israel. When the time came for some smackdown, Egypt demanded that the troops leave, and the UN complied without consulting Israel. Of course, that war didn't work out too well for Egypt or any other Arab states. But the point is that UN peacekeepers or monitors have basically stood there and watched without actually keeping the peace. If the UN mandate was to come in, search for, and actively root out all terror groups in the territories. I'd be all for that. But Israel is quite aware that "peacekeepers" will for the most part sit there and do nothing.
Apparently, it would make more sense economically for Israel to abandon the settlements. http://www.jrep.com/Columnists/Article-1.html "The fundamental assumption of economic policy, in the midst of the War for the Territories, is that the economy exists to serve the settlements. If we don’t starve single moms in Tel Aviv to pay teachers more in Beit El, we’ll be surrendering to terrorism."
I saw this burning bush the other day and it turned out to be God and he told me that it was my land. So what I'm going to have to d is go there and kick everyone out that got there before me. With or without force they are just going to have to go since it was given to me by my God in the burning bush. Or maybe that was just my imagination and the burning bush was really the security buzzer at my apartment and the voice I heard was the delivery guy from the Chinese resaurant I ordered my dinner from.
Well I guess that quite a great share of the US now belong to the Isreaelis. This was a dry summer and actually a lot of bushes and trees got burned. So when Napoleon attacked russia and followed the strategy of the "burned earth" he was actually reserving space for the jews! Thats soooo nice! Or am I confusing something?
regarding Martin Luther King and Ghandi true - but those guys at least accomplished something with their death...