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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
 Posted - 03/08/2002 : 10:10:58
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I'm surprised no one has made a comment on the current goings on between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Here is one article: http://www.msnbc.com/news/677951.asp?pne=msn but I'm sure you can find other references on almost any news website. What I can't understand is how both sides persue policies that will only lead to more deaths. Israel has vacated the moral high ground they have liked to have claimed as their own and now resort to shooting civilians and medical workers offering only the flimsiest of excuses.
I hope Americans are watching this and see how ineffective it is to fight terrorism with military means only. Many have looked to Israel for advice on security and such to fight terrorism. I think they should only be looked upon as an example of how not to fight terrorism unless what you want is a neverending war.
Right now I suggest buying stock in mideast body bag manufacturers.
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law!
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Mespo_man
Skeptic Friend
USA
312 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2002 : 13:05:54 [Permalink]
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[quote]I hope Americans are watching this and see how ineffective it is to fight terrorism with military means only. Many have looked to Israel for advice on security and such to fight terrorism. I think they should only be looked upon as an example of how not to fight terrorism unless what you want is a neverending war. [atomic] [/quote]
The fact that you parrot the phrase that the Israelies are fighting terrorists is part of the problem. Perception is reality. And the perception is that Israel is incapable of error in many American's eyes. No matter what they do, who they kill, or how they kill.
The turning point in my 57 year-old-mind is when a Palestinian girl blew herself up in a suicide attack. It raised eyebrows on BOTH sides. After all, murder and mayhem was strictly a male only enterprise. Now there has been another girl doing the same.
Doesn't anyone understand the sheer desparation that brings a person to commit such an act? Once upon a time in the late 40's a Palestinian woke up to find that the Union Jack had been hauled down and replaced with the Star of David. And he had few legal rights or international status. And the Jews and Arabs have been at each other's throats ever since.
The point is, the U.S. is politically incapable of telling BOTH sides to go f*ck themeselves by cutting off ALL aid. Zinni is simply going to trot back to the Middle Eact and both sides are going to tell HIM where to go. Sharon is COUNTING on our politcal impotence to impose economic sanctions. We're simply not going to do it. Arms shipments and economic trade to Israel will continue unabated and so will the war.
The Palestinians and Israelies have killing down to an exact science. Why quit now?
(:raig |
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Marc_a_b
Skeptic Friend
USA
142 Posts |
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Deborah
Skeptic Friend
USA
113 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2002 : 09:27:59 [Permalink]
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If you really want to understand the conflict, go to the United Nations website and read about it there. You'll get a world view of the conflict, not the limited understanding that our media gives us.
http://www.un.org/search/
In my opinion, it looks like Israel is following our lead. It makes me question how wordly our perspective is because many Americans think we are doing the right thing, but yet...they hold a different opinion when it comes to Israel/Palestine. Hmmmm.
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Deborah
Skeptic Friend
USA
113 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2002 : 09:34:05 [Permalink]
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When I say Israel is following our lead, I mean their recent actions in the news....taking over the compound etc. America backs Israel up all the time. Check out the votes in the UN page. It's not unreasonable to think America and Israel are consulting with each other. It's scary. I think Mespo Man is correct in saying that we may not want to look at them on effective ways of fighting terroism and we certainly should not be leading this effort alone. To truly get at peace it needs to involve all nations.
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2002 : 10:59:05 [Permalink]
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The war that Israel wages against Palestina is not the same kind of 'War on Terrorism' that the US wanted to fight aganist Bin Laden.
Israel has long passed the point where they still could take the moral highground in this conflict. And it appears to me that the onesided intervention of the west and the US in paticular are only making everything worse rather than helping the parties to achieve peace.
I don't know what could be done at this point to get the peace process back on track, but I know that what Israel is doing at the moment is not going to bring them any closer to peace.
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2002 : 12:17:26 [Permalink]
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Insantiy.
And we are doing little to help aleviate the situation.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20020330/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_mideast_908
This situation has been in place, in greater or lesser degree, for so long now that it is almost a way of life. I think that the blood bath will continue until outside influences put a stop to it, or attempt to, quite possibly resulting in yet another blood-bath involving the entire Mid-east.
A bummer anyway you look at it.
"Little man, so spick and span, where were you when the shit hit the fan?"
f
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."--Benjamin Franklin, _Poor_Richard_, 1758
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Donnie B.
Skeptic Friend
417 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2002 : 17:14:27 [Permalink]
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It make you want to throw up your hands, build a wall around the whole region, and let them fight it out... last fanatic standing wins.
Or maybe a few well-placed nukes would convince them that a glowing crater isn't worth fighting over.
Except I'm not sure even that would work...
-- Donnie B.
Brian: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!" |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2002 : 17:51:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
I'm surprised no one has made a comment on the current goings on between the Israelis and Palestinians.
You want to know why! Because it's been going on for years. 2000+ years. The Jews started it with their stupid god. Maybe they didn't invent the idea of one god orginally but it's the one that is recognized now. The one of which the Muslims and Xians are a part of.
We are so tired of hearing about the fighting it's not news anymore, IMO.
I've always been of the opinion that those people over there are crazy, let them blow each other up for all I care, leave the rest of us alone.
"If you succeed, you sell. If you "fail" you learn." |
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Deborah
Skeptic Friend
USA
113 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2002 : 16:42:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
I've always been of the opinion that those people over there are crazy, let them blow each other up for all I care, leave the rest of us alone.
Ohhhh Snake. I have to disagree with this statement. We can not fight "terror" without the cooperation of other nations. What makes you think we don't bear some responsibility (as well as other countries) in helping bring peace to Irael and Palestine?
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2002 : 17:59:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
You want to know why! Because it's been going on for years. 2000+ years. The Jews started it with their stupid god.
If you ask a Jew why they have all of those dietary laws as part of their religion- the prohibition against pork, shell fish, etc.- they will quickly tell you it was for health reasons. This is, of course, baloney because everyone around them in OT times ate this stuff.
It was to keep them seperate from those around them. They couldn't even have lunch with their neighbors, BY GODS LAW. Because they were chosen and everybody else wasn't.
After the Romans destroyed their country and they moved to Europe they kept this nonsense up.
We always hear what a hard time they had--but we never hear why, but are left to believe that where ever they went it was the indigenous population who were nasty.
But they never assimilated any where they went.
I find it hard to believe that in country after country after country the population turned on them for no reason at all.
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It will sometimes be necessary to use falsehood for the benefit of those who need such a mode of treatment.
----Eusebius of Nicomedia,
The Preparation of the Gospel |
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Deborah
Skeptic Friend
USA
113 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2002 : 23:30:09 [Permalink]
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Slater
Maybe as skeptics we should think of ourselves in the same light you just put Jewish people in? We haven't assimilated very well. We seperate ourselves from the majority of society in our non-belief. It sounds pretty silly doesn't it?
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2002 : 00:02:46 [Permalink]
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You are right Deborah. And guess what....people dislike skeptics, too 
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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NottyImp
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
143 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2002 : 10:21:25 [Permalink]
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"But they never assimilated any where they went." (Slater).
I'm not sure I agree with this, although I'm not particularly cognisant of Jewish history. My impression is that Jews have by and large lived within the laws of the many different countries they have settled in, whilst keeping a separate culture and community alive amongst themselves. In Germany before WWII, again the impression I get is that Jews had assimilated so well that they had become extremely succesful German citizens, and hence (ironically) easier to make a scape-goat of when times were hard.
As a British person, I am acutely aware that ex-patriate British communities rarely assimilate well into host cultures - just look at the remnants of empire that exist in pockets around the world.
Really we should be looking to the settlement of 1947 and the creation of a Jewish state that effectively dispossessed the Palestinians for this one, I think.
"Be realistic, demand the impossible" - graffiti from Paris, May 1968.
Edited by - NottyImp on 04/02/2002 10:22:20 |
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LordofEntropy
Skeptic Friend
USA
85 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2002 : 12:00:40 [Permalink]
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Unfortunately most Americans will not "see" how ineffective it is to fight terrorism with military means. Only thing Americans will "see" is George Bush the paranoid lunatic telling them that they will be safe once we stamp out terrorism. They believe it and then give the ass goblin some of the highest approval ratings ever.
We are the last country that should have any responsibility to help restore peace to the middle east. When did we become the experts on peace? All our government knows and cares about is trying to get it's officials reelected. "War on Terrorism" will be effective as the "War on (some)Drugs", but it will be spun to show how good the president is so he can be reelected.
Personally I don't know how anyone could've expected a Jewish state to be plopped in the middle of Islamic countries, to live in harmony with its neighbors. THEY HATE EACH OTHER. Of course they are going to fight.
Jew: "It's my holy land!"
Islamic Arab: "No! It's my holy land!"
Jew: "No! It's my holy land!"
Islamic Arab: "No! It's my holy land!"
Jew: "No! It's my holy land!"
I can't sympathize with the Jews on the same principle that I don't sympathize with hurricane victims in Florida. Yes it sucks that your house was destroyed by a hurricane, but hurricanes hit Florida every year, what the hell do you expect you nitwit.
"Sniff, Sniff, this is the 3rd time my house has been destroyed by a hurricane, I can't believe I have to rebuild it again."
Ever occur to you not to live in a place where they hit every year?
This is the solution I see. The only reason we really give a shit about the middle east is oil. So we give the middle east a big middle finger, let them kill each other and sacrifice each other to Allah or Yahweh, whatever it is that they want to do.
Then we give Russia a call.
"Hello Russia, how is it going today?"
"We have no money and it sucks comrade!"
"Well we need oil really bad, and we have trillions of dollars we want to spend on it!"
"Comrade, we have lots of oil and could use your trillions! What about OPEC?"
"Fuck OPEC, send us your oil now! The money is on its way!"
Then the middle east could go apeshit and we would still get our oil thirst quenched, Russia and the other ex-Soviet republics would get lots of cash. Everyone is happy.
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2002 : 18:05:19 [Permalink]
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Well, don't worry. Your good friend Cal Thomas has the solution. See: http://news.crosswalk.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID74088|CHID194343|CIID1131234,00.html
 . The problem is, I have a feeling that in this case, he's probably right. Each side has religious hatred for the other for generations. There's no way in hell I see that they can ever get along. What worries me, besides the fact that WWIII could bloody well come from this (sarcasm or not, you decide!  ) is his remark about the "so-called refugee camps!" He sounds like they're all just a front for the terrorists or something, (although they probably do come from there, with the lousy conditions and all). It sounds like to me that he's ready to kill Palestinian kids himself. (although that WOULD "solve" the problem! ). Nothing like a little genocide to end disputes. If that happens, then Arafat's claim that "what the Nazis did to the Jews, they are now doing to us" will become a self-fulfilling prophecy!
What's more, I'm getting it from xitans now, who say that the European Union is the only "non-biased" group left to mediate a peace. If that happens, they're saying, then the person who's responsible for solving this current mess will be the "Anti-Christ" who first comes to prominence this way (according to prophecy). I really don't need this....Here's MY idea for solving this. Build a Wall around that entire region of the world, and let them settle it! When they're ready to act like a "civilized" society, we can let them come back out again! (if there's any left ).
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