BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 11:04 PM

Alonzo, you presented me with the Hamas charter. Perhaps I misread your intentions in posting that, but when people do that, I tend to think they want me to think that the Hamas charter is proof that the Palestinians shouldn't be granted their independent state.

I agree that there is a good chance of some continued terrorism after the Palestinians get their state, but at least Israel will have the majority of Palestinians helping them to fight against Hamas, since doing so would also be in defense of the Palestinians' own country.

Little Brother, the extremists on both sides are prolonging the conflict. Hamas did on at least one or two occasions, declare unilateral ceasefires, during which the only violence that was committed was by Israel in targeted assasinations of Palestinians (the last of which resulted in the death of the young child of the target of the assasination, but the target survived). This has happened at least once during the last year. Of course, after two or three targeted assasination attempts, Hamas ended its unilateral ceasefire. If the government of Israel had really wanted Hamas to continue its ceasefire, it would have held off on the targeted assasinations for as long as the unilateral ceasefire held.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Little Brother
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 11:37 PM

Carol, I disagree, The Palestinians should be fighting the Hamas now. Once they have a state why would they want to fight the Hamas.
The time is now.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 12:23 AM

Little Brother, what do they have to fight for?

Continued occupation? Continued expansion of the settlements and confiscation of their land and demolishing of their homes? What do they have to fight for? When they did stop fighting, for two years during the time when they still had hope for some degree of independence from Israel, what did Israel do? It expanded the settlements. Not only that, it increased the rate of settlement expansion. The only thing for them to fight for right now is their freedom. Israel has shown them that being peaceful will not bring them freedom. Israel must give them something to fight for besides their freedom. Right now, to many of them, them it looks like Hamas is in a better position to help them get their freedom than the alternative, since Israel has rendered the alternative completely inefectual.

Do you honestly think that if you were in their shoes, you would not be fighting for your freedom in any way you could? The European Jews who helped bring about Israeli independance used terrorism to help them accomplish their goals. Do you wish that their terrorism had never been rewarded?

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Little Brother
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 12:43 AM

Carol, your last post has nothing to do with my last statement. We were talking about Hamas, not the Israelis.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 12:54 AM

Little Brother, I think she is saying that until Palistine has a functioning government and police for Hamas is Israel's problem. Israel has the guns and the checkpoints.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Little Brother
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 12:59 AM

Jack, if they don't have a functioning government then why is there a prime minister? And they do have a police force albeit an ineffective one. What makes you think they'll be any better when they have an official state? And your right, Hamas is Israel's problem and they are dealing with it.

LB

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 11:00 AM

JtS makes a good point. I wish I had thought to make that point myself. However, the point I was making in my previous post is this... not only do the Palestinians not have the means to fight Hamas at this point, they also don't have an incentive to fight them.

While the majority of Palestinians are willing to live peacefully in their own independent state along side of Israel, each on their own side of the Green Line, unlike Hamas as stated in its charter, there is no one who will help them get their independent state except for Hamas. There is no one who will help them fight for their freedom except for Hamas. They have no one else with the means or the willingness to help them get their freedom.

Israel has removed any incentive the Palestinians would have to fight Hamas. Why should they? They know from experience that Israel will not give them their freedom no matter what they do. Under such circumstances, why would they want to fight the only people who are trying to help them get their freedom?

Israel needs to give the Palestinians an incentive to fight Hamas by giving them the one thing they want that they think Hamas might be able to give them. Their freedom.

Israel can continue to defend itself just as well against Hamas from the Israeli side of the Green Line as is can from within the Occupied Territories. The occupation does not make Israelis safer. It actually puts them in more danger than they would be without the occupation. So ending the occupation and giving the Palestinians their freedom is the best way to protect Israelis. That way, the Palestinians will no longer have any incentive to help Hamas, and they would have the incentive to cooperate with Israel in fighting Hamas. And Israel would still have the IDF to defend its borders (the Green Line).

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Little Brother
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 01:39 PM

Carol, you are contradicting yourself. On one hand you say Hamas is their friend and on the other you say they will fight them. Make no mistake about it. Hamas and the other terrorist groups are the reason the Palestinians don't have a state.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 02:01 PM

I'm not contradicting myself at all. I'm trying to help you understand the complexity of the situation the Palestinians find themselves in. And you're completely wrong about Hamas being the reason the Palestinians don't have a state. They wouldn't have a state even if there had never been a Hamas or any other Palestinian "terrorist" organizations or activities. It was never the intention of those in power in Israel for the Palestinians to have their own state. The intention has always been for Israel to have as much of the Middle East as it can obatain by any means necessary. That's why there is no Israeli constitution. In order for there to be a constitution, Israel would have to legally define it's borders. Israel is not willing to define its borders because it has no intention to stop expanding its borders.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Little Brother
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 04:45 PM

If that is the case then why are they negotiating with the Palestinians at all and why the Oslo Accords where they agreed to release hundreds of militants back into the territories?

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 08:49 PM

I refer you to this post of mine earlier in this thread (wait a bit for it to load to the specific post):

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=71709&messages=210&page=4&desc=yes#1229306

...and the full version:

http://www.spectacle.org/0601/israel.html

...and to these points in particular:

The Oslo Agreement

57.The Oslo Agreement had positive and negative qualities.

58.On the positive side, this agreement brought Israel to its first official recognition of the Palestinian People and its national leadership and brought the National Palestinian Movement to its recognition of the existence of Israel. In this respect the agreement (and the exchange of letters that preceded it) were of paramount historical significance.

59.In effect, the agreement gave the National Palestinian Movement a territorial base on Palestinian land, the structure of a "state in the making" and armed forces-- facts that would play an important role in the ongoing Palestinian struggle. For the Israelis, the agreement opened the gates to the Arab world and put an end to Palestinian attacks --as long as the agreement was effective.

60.The most substantive flaw in the agreement was that both sides hoped to achieve entirely different objectives. The Palestinians saw it as a temporary agreement paving the way to the end of the occupation, the establishment of a Palestinian State in all the occupied territories. On the other hand, the respective Israeli governments regarded it as a way to maintain the occupation in large sections of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the Palestinian self-government filling the role of an auxiliary security agency protecting Israel and the settlements.

61.Therefore, Oslo did not represent the beginning of the process to end the conflict but, rather, another new phase of the conflict.

62.Because the expectations of both sides were so divergent and each remained entirely bound to its own national "narrative", every section of the agreement was interpreted differently. Ultimately, many parts of the agreement were not carried out, mainly by Israel (the third withdrawal, the four safe passages, and others).

63.Throughout the period of the "Oslo Process" Israel continued its vigorous expansion of the settlements, primarily by creating new ones under various guises, expanding existing ones, building an elaborate network of "bypass" roads, expropriating land, demolishing houses and uprooting plantations etc. The Palestinians, on their part, used the time to build their strength, both within the framework of the agreement and without it. In fact, the historical confrontation continued unabated under the guise of negotiations and the "Peace Process", which became a proxy for actual peace.

64.In contradistinction to his image, which became more pronounced after his assassination, Yitzhak Rabin kept the conflict alive "in the field", while simultaneously managing the political process to achieve peace, on Israeli terms. As he was a disciple of the Zionist "narrative" and accepted its mythology, he suffered from cognitive dissonance when his hopes for peace clashed with his conceptual world. It appears that he began to internalize some parts of the Palestinian historical narrative only at the very end of his life.

65.The case of Shimon Peres is much more severe. He created for himself an international image of a peacemaker and even designed his language to reflect this image ("the New Middle East") while remaining essentially a traditional Zionist hawk. This became clear in the short and violent period that he served as Prime Minister after the assassination of Rabin and, again, in his current acceptance of the role of spokesman and apologist for Sharon.

66.The clearest expression of the Israeli dilemma was provided by Ehud Barak who came to power completely convinced of his ability to cut the Gordian knot of the historical conflict in one dramatic stroke, in the fashion of Alexander the Great. Barak approached the issue in total ignorance of the Palestinian narrative and with disrespect to its importance. He presented his proposals as ultimatums and was appalled and enraged by their rejection.

67.In the eyes of himself and the Israeli side at large, Barak "turned every stone" and made the Palestinians "more generous offers than any previous Prime Minister". In exchange, he wanted the Palestinians to sign off on "an end to the conflict". The Palestinians considered this a preposterous pretension since Barak was effectively asking them to relinquish their basic national aspiration, such as the Right of Return and sovereignty in East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Moreover, while Barak presented the claims for the annexation of territories as matter of negligible percentages ("Settlement Blocs"), according to Palestinian calculations this amounted to an actual annexation of 20% of the land beyond the Green Line.

68.In the Palestinian view, they had already made the decisive compromise by agreeing to establish their State within the Green Line, in merely 22% of their historical homeland. Therefore, they could only accept minor border changes in the context of territorial swaps. The traditional Israeli position is that the achievements of the war of 1948 are established facts that cannot be disputed and the compromise required must focus on the remaining 22%.

69.As with most terms and concepts, the word "concession" has different meanings for both sides. The Palestinians believe that they have already "conceded" 78% of their land when they agreed to accept 22% of it. The Israelis believe that they are "conceding" when they agree to "give" the Palestinians parts of those same 22% (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip).

70.The Camp David Summit in the summer of 2000, which was imposed on Arafat against his will, was premature and brought things to a climax. Barak's demands, presented at the summit as Clinton's, were that the Palestinians agree to end the conflict by conceding the Right of Return and the Return itself; to accept complicated arrangements for East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount without achieving sovereignty over them; to agree to large territorial annexations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and to an Israeli military presence in other large areas and to Israeli control over the borders separating the Palestinian State from the rest of the world. No Palestinian leader would ever sign such an agreement and thus the summit ended in deadlock and the termination of the careers of Clinton and Barak.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 01:40 AM

Does Arafat still have the $300,000,000? Just curious.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 06:44 AM

Re the first post to this thread:

In looking back over World Press issues of 2002, I found an article in a Jordanian paper about a UN report, produced by an entirely Arab group, that gives essentially the same figures about the Arab world. I will try to bring it in, and type it up...

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:50 AM

Fuck you brucie.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 01:45 PM

Here's some of the documentation on the 1948 war that I promised Bill H and failed to provide:

http://desip.igc.org/The48ArabInvasionDeconstructed.html

"Simha Flapan, perhaps the most accessible of the "revisionist," historians, played an active role during the war of 1948 as a member of Mapam, the United Workers Party. In his landmark book, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities (New York: Pantheon, 1987) Flapan wrote that "like most Israelis, I had always been under the influence of certain myths that had become accepted as historical truth" (p. 8).

Flapan divides his book into seven sections, each addressing a myth associated with the birth of Israel. Examining "Myth Five," Flapan argues that it was not the Arab invasion which brought on war, but rather the decision by the Jewish leadership to declare statehood on May 14. Flapan contends that documents show that the "Arabs had agreed to a last minute American proposal for a three-month truce on the condition that Israel temporarily postpone its Declaration of Independence. Israel's provisional government rejected the American proposal by a slim majority of 6 to 4." (p. 9)

Ethnic Cleansing, 1947

The reason the Americans and the international community were alarmed as May 14 approached was that a calamitous communal war had broken out immediately after passage of the U.N. Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947. In the war between the stronger Jewish forces and the less prepared Arab community, parallels can be drawn to the ethnic cleansing that is going on in Bosnia.

Like the Serbs today, the Jewish forces generally did everything they could to force the Palestinians to flee their cities, towns and villages. The Arab flight which numbered 60,000 by the end of March 1948, increased dramatically after April 9, 1948, the date of the infamous Dir Yassin massacre, when Menachem Begin's Irgun (with the tacit complicity of Ben-Gurion's Haganah) slaughtered more than 100 civilians from a "friendly" Arab village near Jerusalem.

News of the massacre, including cases of rape, spread quickly throughout the Arab community and led to the terrified mass flight of civilians in search of safety. Before the middle of May '48 almost 300,000 Palestinians had fled.

Avoiding Repatriation

One reason that Ben-Gurion opted for Statehood on May 14 despite international opposition was because he understood that if he held back and a truce was effected, a new Israeli State might well be forced to repatriate the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians already made refugees. Moreover, by mid-May, there remained more than 500,000 Palestinians in areas that the Jewish forces controlled or desired for their state. Ben-Gurion had no intention of allowing such a large Arab minority to remain in Israel and therefore he chose war. In the end, more than 750,000 Palestinians were exiled forever from their homes.

Flapan also argues that an unprepared Arab nation entered the war reluctantly. The Arab forces were divided politically and, contrary to myth, they were no match for the Jewish forces in numbers either.

Flapan cites figures which indicate that the combined Arab armies totaled no more than 25,000 troops; including 10,000 Egyptian troops, 4,500 Transjordanian troops and perhaps 3,000 troops from Palestine itself, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon respectively. In contrast, all estimates of front-line Jewish troops, united under a single command, put the number at least at 25,000. In addition, some estimates of Jewish forces are as high as 60,000 or 90,000 more if settlement troops, irregular forces and others are counted. (Flapan, p. 196) With these figures in mind, it is easier to see how Ben-Gurion could gamble on a unilateral declaration of the state of Israel on May 14, and war."

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 02:18 PM

Here's some more:

http://www.merip.org/mer/mer230/230_beinin.html

On July 11, 1948, Aharon Cohen, director of the Arab Affairs Department of the socialist-Zionist Mapam party in Israel, received a carbon copy of a military intelligence report. Israel, a state less than two months old, was embroiled in a war with neighboring Arab states that would last until 1949. . Cohen was upset to read the report's conclusion that 70 percent of these Arabs had fled due to "direct, hostile Jewish operations against Arab settlements" by Zionist militias, or the "effect of our hostile operations on nearby (Arab) settlements."[1] One month before Cohen received this report, Mapam's political committee had issued a resolution opposing "the tendency to expel the Arabs from the Jewish state," in response to Cohen's warnings that such operations were taking place.

Over the course of Arab-Jewish fighting between 1947 and 1949, well over 700,000 Palestinians were made refugees, the majority of them by direct expulsion or the fear of expulsion or massacre. The largest single expulsion occurred after Israeli conquest of the towns of Lydda and Ramla in the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv corridor during July 9-18, 1948. Some 50,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes in these towns by Israeli forces whose deputy commander was Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel from 1974-1977 and 1992-1995. Some two dozen massacres of Palestinians were perpetrated by pre-state Zionist militias and Israeli forces, the most infamous of them on April 9-10, 1948, at the village of Deir Yassin.

Yet after the war, it was Mapam's prescription for the conduct of Israeli forces—rather than the reality of expulsion—that became official Israeli history, and eventually, came to define the Jewish Israeli collective memory of what happened in 1948. For decades, the state of Israel, and traditional Zionist historians, argued that the Palestinian Arabs fled on orders from Arab military commanders and governments intending to return behind the guns of victorious Arab armies which would "drive the Jews into the sea." Consequently, the Zionist authorities would admit little or no responsibility for the fate of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants. This was not due to lack of adequate information. Ample evidence from Zionist sources from the period of the 1948 war and immediately afterwards indicates that members of the military and political elite, secondary leaders and intellectuals close to them knew very well what happened to the Palestinian Arabs in 1948, to say nothing of rank-and-file soldiers and kibbutz members who actually expelled Palestinians, expropriated their lands and destroyed their homes. But soon after the fighting, Zionist and Israeli state officials began to consolidate an official discourse that enabled most Israeli Jews to "forget" what they once "knew"—that during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war a large number of Palestinian Arabs were ethnically cleansed from the territories that became the state of Israel."


http://www.angeltowns.com/members/palestine/articles/Morris.htm

"Shlaim, in his well-argued, generally well-founded book had maintained that (a) years of Zionist-Hashemite contacts and shared political interests had resulted, in 1946-47, in the conclusion of an unwritten agreement between the leadership of the Yishuv and 'Abdallah, king of Jordan, not to fight each other but to split Palestine between them, with the Hashemites (rather than the Palestinians) receiving what is today called the West Bank, and eventually to make peace; (b) in early 1948, Britain tacitly approved the Yishuv-Hashemite agreement by supporting a Jordanian takeover of the West Bank (rather than the creation in that territory of an independent, Husayni-led Palestinian state, as the UN General Assembly had ruled), and cautioned 'Abdallah not to attack the Jewish state; (c) the Yishuv-Hashemite agreement, while somewhat shaken, in effect weathered the Jewish-Palestinian battles of November 1947-May 1948, and resulted in limited and indecisive warfare between the Israel Defence Forces and Jordan's army, the Arab Legion, in May 1948-April 1949; and (d) following the war, 'Abdallah wanted to reach peace with Israel but due to the internal weaknesses of his position and Israeli unwillingness to make concessions, no peace treaty was achieved...

...The real question about the Jewish Agency-Hashemite agreement is not whether it existed but what happened to it in the course of the Israeli-Jordanian battles of May-July 1948. Clearly, it partially unravelled in April 1948 under the impact of the Haganah's military successes, the gradual disintegration of Palestinian society, and the Dayr Yasin massacre. 'Abdallah felt unable to stand aside or to break ranks publicly with the other Arab leaders.

But did he really renege on the agreement? ...On 10 May 1948 Ben-Gurion sent Golda Meir to meet 'Abdallah once again in a last-ditch effort to avert a Yishuv-Hashemite clash. Returning to Tel Aviv, she reported to the Mapai Central Committee: "We met [on 10 May] amicably. He is very worried and looks terrible. He did not deny that there had been talk and understanding between us about a desirable arrangement, namely that he would take the Arab part [of Palestine]. . . . "But 'Abdallah had said that he could now, on 10 May, only offer the Jews "autonomy" within an enlarged Hashemite kingdom. He added that while he was not interested in invading the areas allocated for Jewish statehood, the situation was volatile. But he voiced the hope that Jordan and the Yishuv would conclude a peace agreement once the dust had settled.(16)

On 15 May the Arab Legion, along with the other Arab armies, invaded Palestine. But far from unravelling, the agreement, at least in 'Abdallah's mind, appeared to hold fast. 'Abdallah's troops kept meticulously to the 17 November 1947 scenario: At no point in May, or thereafter, did the Arab Legion attack the Jewish state's territory. The Legion occupied the northern half of the West Bank and advanced as far westward as Latrun, Lydda, and Ramla (all UN-allocated Arab areas); and, acceding to local Arab pressures, drove into (Arab) East Jerusalem, essentially to secure the area (and its holy sites, including 'Abdallah's father's tomb on the Temple Mount) against Jewish conquest. But Jerusalem, allocated by the United Nations partition resolution neither to Jew nor to Arab, had not been covered in the Meir-'Abdallah agreement. Moreover, apart from securing the Old City (including conquering its Jewish Quarter), the Legion had refrained from attacking Jewish positions and areas (except for forays around the Mandelbaum Gate and the Notre Dame Monastery designed to safeguard the Legion's line of communication from Ramallah into the city).

No doubt, 'Abdallah was not motivated solely by his adherence to the agreement. His army was small, numbering only some 7,500-9,000 troops at the start of hostilities, and he hardly had enough soldiers to secure the West Bank, let alone attempt to conquer Jewish state territory or fight in costly street battles in West Jerusalem. Moreover, the British had warned him against attacking the Jewish state (see below), and he had promised to refrain from doing so.

Before 15 May, various Jewish officials - Yaacov Shimoni, Moshe Shertok (Sharett), etc. - feared that 'Abdallah might attack the Jewish state nonetheless ("Can any Arab be trusted?"). But in effect, when it came to brass tacks, 'Abdallah adhered strictly to the letter and spirit of the agreement. Rather, it was the Jews who broke it when the Haganah/IDF repeatedly attacked the Legion in Latrun (in late May and June), in Lydda-Ramla (in July), and near Tarqumiya (October). It was Ben-Gurion - because he sought to lift the siege of Jerusalem and expand Jewish territorial holdings beyond what the UN had earmarked - who violated it."

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Once Famous
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 04:02 PM

Anyone who reads this CarolC Israel hating crap and believes any of it I find kind of pathetic.

A person who takes so much time and is so obsessive for the cause against Israel and is so supportive of anything and everything Palestinian is a mental case.

I would love to see her in front of ANY Jewish group at any synagogue spewing her crap. I'm sure she would be boo'd off the stage.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 04:23 PM

I'm sure that a Jewish group would have much to take issue with with what she has said. But if she is speaking in front of them by invitation and if they booed her off the stage then that would prove that the people who booed were as rude and igornant as you are. I don't believe that you are speaking for many people when you behave so rudely and so insultingly.

Martin Gibson said.....

Anyone who reads this CarolC Israel hating crap and believes any of it I find kind of pathetic.

A person who takes so much time and is so obsessive for the cause against Israel and is so supportive of anything and everything Palestinian is a mental case.

I would love to see her in front of ANY Jewish group at any synagogue spewing her crap. I'm sure she would be boo'd off the stage. Anyone who reads this CarolC Israel hating crap and believes any of it I find kind of pathetic.

A person who takes so much time and is so obsessive for the cause against Israel and is so supportive of anything and everything Palestinian is a mental case.

I would love to see her in front of ANY Jewish group at any synagogue spewing her crap. I'm sure she would be boo'd off the stage.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 05:03 PM

I don't think I would be boo'd off the stage if I was speaking in front of any of these Jewish organizations. Especially considering the fact that a lot of the information I post on this subject comes from them:

http://www.nimn.org/
http://www.btselem.org/
http://www.batshalom.org/english/batshalom/index.html
http://www.btvshalom.org/newmem/index.cgi?refer=googlem3
http://www.refusersolidarity.net/
http://www.jfjfp.org/
http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resources/other_israel/muhamad.html
http://www.tikkun.org/index.cfm
http://www.jatonyc.org/

However, if you would like to see this thread drop off the page, I suggest you take that up with brucie, since he's the one who keeps refreshing it just for shits and giggles.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 06:58 PM

Gee---Carol C. I am staying out of this nonsensical brouhaha as said---going nowhere and returning to the alien planet from which I emigrated in a galaxy far away.   However---your eloquence is just so wonderful to behold. I mean "Fuck You"---what a wonderful debating point. Perhaps you might forward it to the candidates to use in any debates---always a crowd pleaser and a winner when there is nothing else left to say.

My thanks for dedicating an entire length of cyberspace to me in your obsessive rantings. Much appreciatred. Who was it ==P T Barnum---any publicity is good publicity?   Glad you did not dedicate the obscenity to me---bet you will soon though.

Here I thought the Rev. Al was over the top many times---but always clever. Looks like we have a winner in you Carol. Too bad Abe Lincoln is gone---he could have used you for a speechwriter---"Fourscore and seven years ago ---hell who cares---fuck you all". Ah, would that Abe had your input.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Little Brother
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 08:02 PM

Carol, all the groups you bookmarked are radical left wing groups all with an axe to grind. -LB

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 09:04 PM

Bill H, here's one for you...

Earlier in the thread, you were wondering something along the lines of "where's the Palestinians' Ghandi or Martin Luther King".

When you or any of the other few thousand people I've heard or read ask that question, you are linking the situation that the Palestinians find themselves in to the situations that the Blacks in the US South found themselves in during the period of US segregation and the people of India during the colonial period there, and the conditions they were subjected to that reqired a Martin Luther King or a Ghandi. The question I keep finding myself asking is this... where's Israel's Abraham Lincoln?

My "fuck you" response is between me and brucie, and it's none of your business.

Little Brother... no, those groups are not radical, left-wing organizations. They are human rights organizations. Just like the groups that worked for civil rights for Blacks in the US were human rights organizations, and the groups that fought against apartheid in South Africa were human rights organizations, and all of the other organizations around the world that fight for human rights are human rights organizations. During the period of segregation in the US South, civil rights workers like Martin Luther King were labled "radical" and "left wing". I'd say that label says a lot more about the mindset of those who throw it around than it does about those who are being labled.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:18 PM

Why, thank you, Carol. I'm on cloud nine lately, and I'll just take that as a compliment.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 12:08 AM

Take it however you like brucie. I don't concern myself too much with trolls.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 12:10 AM

Poor baby.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 12:22 AM

Here's the difference between a human rights organization and someone with a political agenda...

Human rights organizations fight for and protect the civil rights of human beings (all human beings) when the people whose job it is to fight for and protect the civil rights of hunan beings find it politically inexpedient to do so.

Here's a for instance:

Some people consider the ACLU to be a "radical left-wing" organization. However the ACLU was willing to act on behalf of Jonathan Pollard when even Senator Leiberman was not willing to do so. The human rights organizations will protect and fight for people, for no reason other than the fact that they are human beings, when no one else will. And that's the difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 11:38 PM

Well--Carol C--I do not believe I ever made the references you mentioned. Given the length of the thread I can understand your missing or mistaking a comment by various folks---though given your obsessiveness it does seem hard to believe. Perhaps I stand corrected---though I doubt it---but if so you will surely make note of it.
       As to privacy or your personal note (as you say it is) of your "Fuck You" statement--- then you should send it privately. This is a public forum and you have reached your, I am sure, most admiring public in the most impressive manner with your eloquence.

By the way---I use my name:

Bill Hahn
(who also likes fair play, equality with justice, and all the other things you espouse---but in a spirit of historical background and realism---and yes--bless the ACLU)

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 12:39 AM

I think the question about the $300,000,000 is a fair one.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:15 AM

Bill Hahn, I've given my real name here in this thread. I'm not sure what your point is in bringing up real names.

It is a public forum, as you say, and I'm just as entitled to address a fellow poster in the manner of my choosing ase you are. I didn't say my response to brucie was private. I said it's none of your business.

brucie, maybe it is a fair point. But trolling is trolling. You're just refreshing this thread every time it's gone off the page for a couple of days so you can watch the shit fly for the fun of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:45 AM

No, Carol. A question that's inconvenient for you is not the post of someone who's trolling. Both questions are ones you have not answered. Get to the cut and paste. I'm sure they will not be simple answers despite both of them being simple questions. Convolute and conflate.

You ignore the killings done by Palestinians; you write that off as what, Carol? In your hatred of Israel and millions of people who live there, you allow your hatred to dictate pages and pages of tripe in support of what I perceive to be racism. You can call it what you want, but here's a person who doesn't buy into your reasoning.

You don't blame any nation except your own and Isreal. Your hatred of Jews is thinly veiled by your "excuse everything suicide bombers do because Israel is bad" threnody. You do not care that Israeli kids die in the name of what, Carol? And your husband disingenuously pretends that Arafat doesn't have the money.

I used to think you were an ardent defender of human rights. I see now that you are, as long as those rights don't belong to Jewish people who live in their homeland.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:55 AM

brucie, you're just projecting your own bullshit onto me. I don't know how you arrive at the conclusion that I hate Israel and don't want civil rights extended to Jewish people in their "homeland" when all I am calling for is for them to END THE OCCUPATION of the WEST BANK, GAZA, AND EAST JERUSALEM, and to leave the Palestinians alone to build their own country in THE WEST BANK, GAZA, AND EAST JERUSALEM.

It's you who is full of hate. You hate the Palestinians so much, you don't even see them as human beings wHo deserve the same rights as you and me and the Jews who live in Israel.

And how the hell should I know whether or not Arafat still has that stupid 300 million that you say he has?

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 02:00 AM

And yes, what the Palestinians is doing is in self defense. My putting it to you as a question was a credit to your humanity, but I see that I overestimated you in that respect.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 02:02 AM

You won't be truly happy until they're all dead, and you know it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 02:19 AM

I do not see suicide bombers as human. You project your bullshit onto everyone. When will you address the right of suicide bombers to kill Jewish kids, Carol? When? Don't talk to me about bullshit. You are a master of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 02:32 AM

Why do you never discuss the other countries in the region--many of them very rich countries--that have done NOTHING to help Palestinians. Funding for "fraternal organizations" yes, but not the Palestinian people. Israel is surrounded by countries that have vowed to kill everyone in Israel. You tend to ignore that while you spout the party line, don't you? Yeah, you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:23 AM

The only action that is required to solve the problem is for Israel to end the occupation and leave the Palestinians alone so they can get to work building their own country. Everything else, all arguments about who else is responsible for what, is just an avoidance of the real issue, which is that Israel is conducting a brutal occupation against an entire people and killing many, many more Palestinian children than the other way around.

And you know full well that I have condemned the killing of Israeli children and Israeli civilians several times here in these threads. So don't give me that bullshit about not addressing the issue of the suicide bombers killing civilians.

It's you and the others who start these threads, and you, in particular who keep refreshing this one when it goes dormant, who are obsessed. And that's because deep in your heart, you know you are wrong, and instead of just dealing with it, you have to beat me up in threads like this one so you won't have to face the reality of what you are advocating. I'm not the one who starts these threads. I would like to see all of them just go away. But that won't happen as long as there are people who need to promote hatred of Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims because if they do the alternative- recognize these people as human beings, they won't any longer be able to rationalize away the horrific things that are being done to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:33 AM

Save it, Carol. You are abusive. You don't start the threads, Carol, but you keep them going. It is not about rights for Palestinians; it's about Carol being right.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:43 AM

You call me abusive. After all of the shit I've had slung at me from you, Bill H, Martin Gibson, and a host of others. You are a hypocrite, brucie. I've taken the abuse that's been heaped on me and not responded in kind until you started trolling in this thread. Save it yourself, you fucking hypocrite.

If you don't want this thread to be prolonged, DON'T REFRESH IT!!!

Blaming me for prolonging it, when it's you who have been refreshing it after it's gone dormant, really takes the cake, and requires a degree of lunacy that I can't even begin to understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:44 AM

"And you know full well that I have condemned the killing of Israeli children and Israeli civilians several times here in these threads. So don't give me that bullshit about not addressing the issue of the suicide bombers killing civilians."

And every time it comes down to the Israelis being wrong for wanting to live. You hate Israel, Carol. No question. I don't know that you are on such high moral ground. Not at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Peace
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:47 AM

You not understanding lunacy leaves me speechless. Have a nice day.

"Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC - PM
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:50 AM

Fuck you brucie.

Your words I believe. Did you think it up all by yourself, Carol?

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:49 AM

brucie, I have supported the building of the wall, ALONG THE GREEN LINE. I have supported Israel putting its troops along its border ON THE GREEN LINE. That is how they can save the lives of innocent Israelis. They do NOT protect innocent Israeli lives by putting settlers in the Occupied Territories and waging a brutal occupation of the Palestinians.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:51 AM

Yes. Fuck you brucie. Fuck you for refreshing this thread just so you can get your jollies from watching me get beat up for standing up for what I believe in. Fuck you.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 12:27 PM

Jack the Sailor:
"Date: 18 Jul 04 - 07:39 PM

That is a speech is bigoted hate inducing unsupported diatribe. The man claims to know the all the problems of an area from Morrocco to Pakistan because he lives in Israel even though he says Israel is not a cause of the problem."

Sept 2002 Worldpress article, from July 2002 Al-Ra'i article

quote from article:

"Now that Rima Khalaf has moved to the United Nations as director of the Arab regional office in the U.N. Development Program, she has taken the same idea and expanded it to cover 22 Arab countries in order to make clear the region's faults and give encouragement to those in a position to instigate reform.

The team she chose and led was 100-percent Arab in order to avoid accusations of bias against the Arabs or of focusing on negative points in an attempt to distort the image of the Arabs in the world, according to the conspiracy theory. "

"The Arab development report hangs out the Arabs' dirty washing before the world and offers a wealth of information that mars the image of the Arabs in the world, but unfortunately the information is correct. Perhaps the most Arab regimes will do after reading it is to pressure Kofi Annan to move Rima Khalaf and ask her to pack her bags and return to her home in Amman. "

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:19 PM

BeardedBruce do you have a point or do you just enjoy posting unrelated quotes on the same thread?

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:26 PM

Israelis being wrong for wanting to live.


I'll tell you what Brucie. If you are not a troll, you show us where Carol said that the Israelis are wrong "for wanting to live". If she is really as hatefull as you say she is it shouldn't be hard to find. If you can't find anything to back up what you are saying, if you can't back up your disgusting ad hominim attacks then fuck you!

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:28 PM

That IS the point of this thread.

This is a source for the information in the starting post, which YOU have claimed the man could not know because he was a Jew. I hardly think that this is unrelated.

" bigoted hate inducing unsupported diatribe " right back at you...

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:51 PM

That article is pretty hatemongering, beardedbruce. It takes the work being done by an Arab to help identify and correct the problems facing the Arab world out of context and only discusses the fact that they have problems, and ignores the fact that their purpose in identifying the problems is so that they can begin to correct them. To their credit they at least have someone who is willing to look the problems of her people squarely in the eye and be honest about them. I wish the United States had someone like her working for us at the UN.

She also has some pretty harsh words for the damage that the actions of the western countries are causing to the the Arab world's efforts to improve and reform their situation. Here's the speech she gave about the Arab Human Development Report for 2003

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:aviwCXvLAiIJ:www.undp.org/RimaSpeechEnglish.pdf+%22Rima+Khalaf+Hunaidi%22&hl=en

"Allow me first, Your Excellency, to express my gratitude to you and my deep appreciation for your kind welcome. We are greatly honoured by your presence on the occasion of the official launch of the Second Arab Human Development Report. It is a source of immense pleasure for us that Jordan, in the reign of His Majesty King Abdullah the Second, is hosting this landmark ceremony. This generous act has given the Report team a platform from which to address the entire Arab people and a forum open to different points of view. Amman for us today is a centre for freedom of expression in service to the cause of development across the Arab world. To our distinguished guests attending from other countries of region, I offer a warm welcome to Jordan. Thank you for taking the trouble to be with us and for sharing our faith in the capabilities of this region and our concern for its future...

...In the time available to me, please allow me to accompany you on a quick tour of the second Report. This is an opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the state of knowledge in the Arab world, in particular its dissemination and production; to take note of the cultural, political, economic and social context for knowledge acquisition; and to review aspects of the authors' strategic vision for enhancing the acquisition, indigenisation and creation of knowledge. Before turning to the topic of knowledge, it is important to remember that, according to the Report team, the two years between starting the first Report and initiating the second have been two years unlike any others in recent Arab history. This has been a time of events that have shaken the world and traumatized the Arab region. In 2002, the Israeli army reoccupied almost the entire Palestinian Territories committing, notably in Jenin and Nablus, a series of human atrocities, including wanton destruction, intimidation and killing that led reputable international non-governmental organizations to describe those acts as "war crimes".

The invasion also caused widespread material destruction that spared neither schools, nor mosques nor churches nor even olive trees. The occupation continues to undermine the capabilities of Palestinian society and its hopes of self-determination and statehood. In 2003 Iraq fell under an occupation that most Arabs saw as embodying plans to reshape the region from the outside to suit the interests of foreign powers. Over the last two years, measures taken in the name of the war on terrorism have stifled freedoms in many parts of the world, notably in the United States. Civil and political freedoms, particularly of Arabs and Muslims, were violated as a consequence. Arabs and Muslims have faced arrest and arbitrary detention without trial or charge. Contrary to established legal principles they have become guilty until proven innocent.

Islam has been the target of an unjust wave of provocation, defamation and criticism that betrays remarkable ignorance most of the time and blatant prejudice at other times. The clearest expression of what Arabs and Muslims have come to suffer as a result of ethnic profiling came from His Majesty King Abdullah The Second when he observed in his Islamic Summit speech that the pre-judgement of Muslims has come to represent the worst form of terrorism. Certain profound events only reveal their full consequences after an interval. Yet in this case the results were felt immediately. The impact of these momentous events would cripple the process of development in Arab societies imposing a pattern contrary to that desired by most Arabs.

Undoubtedly, under these new circumstances, the challenge of human development has become even more important, more urgent and harder to attain. In contrast to these externally driven events, the series of Arab Human Development Reports represents an effort to crystallize a strategic vision of change, developed by Arabs, for the sake of human development from within the region and to deepen an Arab-owned and Arab-led dialogue on ways to safeguard the dignity and well-being of the Arab people. There can be no doubt that self-reform stemming from open, scrupulous and balanced self-criticism is the right, if not the only alternative to plans that have apparently been drawn up outside the Arab world for restructuring the region and for reshaping its identity.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:57 PM

beardedbruce, just like brucie, you are twisting other peoples words to make it look like they are saying something entirely differen from what they are actually saying. You can't possibly be on very firm ground in your arguments if you have to resort to that kind of dirty trick.

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 02:06 PM

CarolC

Jack the Sailor: " The man claims to know the all the problems of an area from Morrocco to Pakistan because he lives in Israel "

I merely presented WHERE he got the facts that he used in his arguement. Fram an ARAB generated UN Report. Hardly the " bigoted hate inducing unsupported diatribe" that Jack claimed it was- unless you choose to call the UN Report unsupported. At least I had the decency not to post the entire article, when the "blue clicky" makes it available to those interested.
" You can't possibly be on very firm ground in your arguments if you have to resort to that kind of dirty trick. "

Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 02:17 PM

from the first posting:

"Why do I put aside Israel and its own immediate neighborhood? Because
Israel and any problems related to it, in spite of what you might read
or hear in the world media, is not the central issue, and has never
been the central issue in the upheaval in the region. Yes, there is a
100 year-old Israeli-Arab conflict, but it is not where the main show
is. The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do with
Israel. The mass murder happening right now in Sudan, where the Arab
Moslem regime is massacring its black Christian citizens, has nothing
to do with Israel. The frequent reports from Algeria about the murders
of hundreds of civilian in one village or another by other Algerians
have nothing to do with Israel. Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait,
endangered Saudi Arabia and butchered his own people because of Israel.
Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen in the 60's because of
Israel. Assad the Father did not kill tens of thousands of his own
citizens in one week in El Hamma in Syria because of Israel. The
Taliban control of Afghanistan and the civil war there had nothing to
do with Israel. The Libyan blowing up of the Pan-Am flight had nothing
to do with Israel, and I could go on and on and on."


"But that won't happen as long as there are people who need to promote hatred of Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims because if they do the alternative- recognize these people as human beings, they won't any longer be able to rationalize away the horrific things that are being done to them. "

The question becomes, done to them BY WHOM?