Bush Sells Out The Palestinians.

What was offered in 2000 was an unfair settlement.

It conceded Jerusalem amoung other things.

It is hard to stomach the zionist bs this early in the morning isnt it?
Im baffled by them, the zionists. Do they honestly believe the recent agreement is fair and just? These land deals remind me of the brokering the US GOV did with the native American Indians. Is that a shining moment in foreign relations or what? Now its happening over there, for all to see on TV, and there are those amoung us that try and justify it? Try and defend it??? What is this hold that the neo-cons have on the minds of men? Men which are obviously intelligent seem to be unable or unwilling to examine things with an open mind and think for themselves. They constantly spout the party line, polarised in their 'republican' or 'democrat' camps.
What of the USS Liberty, you zionists? Does your blind alegience cause you to dismiss it as an accident, a case of mistaken identity no doubt. What will it take to make you realize "Hey! Maybe they dont have my (our) best interest in mind. Maybe they're in it for themselves!"
But perhaps you will never make that realization. I will pray for you all the same.

How arrogant. I'm British and I don't view it as a sellout. You don't speak for the British. Nor for the governments of Europe.
Maybe you got your "British view" from a media that you spend so much time lambasting as lying?

Israel pulling out of Gaza is long overdue. They would have done so months ago if the Palestinians had adhered to one single point on the roadmap - something that even the most biased observer has to admit they did not do.

The Palestinians are whining because things are moving ahead without them and their bargaining position is being undermined. Well, it's their own fault. They signed up to the roadmap and they completely refused to implement it.

All this talk about Zionism is just stupid. The roadmap was going nowhere whilst Arafat sat on his backside with his unelected Palestinian "lapdog" Authority.

As for the West Bank settlements? Nowhere do I read that Bush has endorsed them all as permanent. Nowhere do I see that they are not negotiable in the future.

Sellout? The only thing that has been sold out here is the truth by those with their anti-Israel/US agenda.

Hi JB,

I just u2ud you. I hadn't seen this yet when I did, but responding to your u2u in the bullpen.

I absolutely did NOT try to bury your story, and that's the God's-honest. I wish that you had left it an OP/ED because it is a good OP/ED article.

As I explained in my u2u, I actually had to do the same thing to myself yesterday when I started writing the piece about Kerry's new secondary-education plan. I realized I could not write an unbiased report (i.e. without strong personal opinion as statement of fact of the story) about it, so I had to change the category to OP/ED.

Anyway, there was no malice in my deicions, nor was there an ulterior motive. Overt motive was to place the story in the appropriate category.

Has anyone read this analysis by DEBKA? It is interesting because it looks at the statements made concerning the "1949 armistice lines". And comes to the conclusion that this could actually result in Israel having less land when all is said and done because of the doors it opens to Egypt and Jordan reclaiming lands.

www.debka.com...

"Putting these large chunks of Israel back on the negotiating table would provide a pretext for Egypt and Jordan to re-open its peace treaties with Israel and lay fresh claims to more territory. An even more dangerous twist could come about if the leaders of Israel’s two peace partners decided to renounce their claims in favor of enlarging a Palestinian state."

So, this is saying that Egypt and Jordan could actually decide that they want to pass right-of-ownership to the Palestinian state on lands that were up for negotiation going back to a pre-1967 time. As these analysts found, this leaves "demilitarized zones large and highly strategic areas of pre-1967 Israel, including the Hamma intersection of the Israeli, Jordanian and Syrian borders, the Nitzana region south of the Gaza Strip and abutting on Sinai in the Israeli Negev, the eastern half of the Israeli Arava from Tsofar south of the Dead Sea up to Eilat at its southernmost tip" open for re-negotiation that Egypt and Jordan could win and then hand over to Palestine.

[Edited on 4-15-2004 by Valhall]

Bush selling out the Palestinians why am i not surprised?

How many chances were offered to palestine to begin to build SOMETHING???Even if the deal wasnt as sweet as theyve been looking for, at least they were starting places to then continue to work things out.

I have seen NO effort by the palastinieans to try ANYTHING...

What i have seen is continued terrorism and threats come from palestine. with continued attempts by israel and the USA to try and get productive constructive efforts going to build up palestine.

Leveller,
i blasted one of your posts on a different thread, but im glad to see some britts with at least some sense here!!!


And to those that blame the "biased" media....do you really think that we here in the states, that are constantly BOBMARDED by media daily, have no reststance or brains to think with? Like we believe everything we see on tv or read in the papers?
As if there was no internet, or even access to out of the usa media (we do get al jerkzeria and bbc here along with other foriegn media, both broadcast and print)

Please, i work as a journalist in the media, and i laugh at these assertations that we are controlled or that the public actually believes what we say without question.

EU have just announced they oppose any unilateral change to the mideast borders.

You see, John, to me your answer is bigoted. You know that Israel was attacked in her infancy by her neighbors. You know that the "West Bank" is Judea and Sumaria and is hers. So is the Gaza strip. You know they reclaimed their land. You know that the "Palestinians" are not a race but a group of people that have been called that since the Arabs figured it'd be advantageous to do so. You know that calling an Arab that decades ago would have offended him as it specifically referred to Jews. You know that the fellow Arabs never assimilated them because in doing so they would have taken away leverage with which to destroy Israel. You know that the "Palestinians" decided what side to support and in doing so made their beds up a long time ago. They could have been a part of Israel and being treated as just another citizen, but they chose a different path.
John, you know that they do not have claim to the West Bank (Judea and Sumaraia) and the fact that Sharon is pulling out at all is a concession. But as usual, the Arabs will not give concession, they won't be happy until their is no Israel. That's what they say claim so don't say I'm being harsh. Oh, but the Arab desire to destroy Israel and make the Jews swim isn't bigoted at all, is it?

I think we are witnessing monumental things here. (with a capital M even!) It will be interesting to see if Egypt and Jordan do step up and make a statement of "reclamation" of the demilitarized zones. This could turn the whole thing on its head.

The big problem is that the world community in post WWII lost all logic in trying to digest the horrific things it discovered as it marched across the occupied lands of Europe. And I understand how that happened - I can't imagine not being ate up with emotion over the atrocities that occurred to the peoples who were targets of Hitler's regime. And the Jews in particular.

But the knee-jerk reaction of the world to say that the atrocities had earned the Jewish people the right to a nation of their own and then pick a region that another group of people had been living on for HUNDREDS of years and say - all you honyocks get off these sidewalks - so that we can give these people a nation, could do nothing BUT cause the situation that we have had from day one.

The Palestinian people did not commit the holocaust. They were not part of the Nazi regime. They were sitting on the ancestral homes growing dates and milking goats and whatever else they were doing in the 1940's. Point being, the "reparation" to the Jews turned out to be an unjustified "punishment" to the Palestinians.

Those Palestinians knew nothing but that as home...for like four hundred years the land had been their families' - passed from generation to generation. And all of a sudden, families were uprooted, homes and homesteads taken from underneath them.

If a delegation of Manhattan Indians appeared before the world community and petitioned based on how they were duped 300 years ago, and made promises that to a letter were broken, and the court ruled that reparation must be made by allowing this sovereign people to have their own nation - and it should be the Nation of Manhattan - on the island of Manhattan, that would be a MORE APPROPRIATE decision than was made post WWII. And the loss the current Manhattan residents would feel as they were displaced from the only home they have ever known would be REAL and JUSTIFIED.

It matters not what "side" you are on in this never-ending and degrading situation, at a point you MUST admit the "human factor" involved. The Palestinians lost their homes in 1949...period. They lost it without voice, without defense...and pretty much without warning.

I will never stand against Israel...period. For personal reasons. BUT I also will speak the truth. The truth is, I understand IN MY HEART the loss that the Palestinians endured almost 60 years ago.



[Edited on 4-15-2004 by Valhall]

Ridiculous! Are the English a race? Or maybe the French?
Or maybe you want to see states divided by "races"!

Obviously those territories are highly disputed because they have always been inhabited by a mix of people.

If you really want to get "historic" you should know that the "Canaanites" were the earliest known inhabitants! Hebrew tribes migrated to the area centuries before Moses and they defeated the Canaanites about 1125BC.

The Kingdom (Israel) soon divided between Israel in the north and Judah at the south.

However they couldn't maintain their independence for long and after Israel was conquered by Assiria and Judah by Babilonia (aprox. 586 BC) Jerusalem was destroyed and most of the Jews living there, exiled.

In about 333BC Alexander the Great conquered the region and 141-63 BC Pompey the Great took it for Rome and made it a province ruled by Jewish kings.
When Christianity was legalized by Constantine the Great, the land became a focus of Christian pilgrimage and most of the population was Christianized.
The Byzantines (Romans) lost the territories definitively in 638 AD when Muslim Arab armies captured Jerusalem.

The Muslims did not force their religion on the Palestinians but after more than a century the majority converted to Islam.

After various power changes and domination by Seljuks, Fatimids, and the Europeans during the Crusades, the Ottoman Empire expanded and Palestine became part of it until the winter of 1917-1918. During this time, the administration was largely given to Arabized Palestinians, descendents of the Canaanites and later settlers but the Christian and Jewish communities were allowed a relative autonomy.

The 19th century brought a rise of nationalism in Europe and an intensification of anti-semitism and Jewish immigration to the promissed land increased. (in 1880 Arab Palestinians were about 95% of the total population of 450000) After the British promised the Arabs the independence of their countries they revolted against the Turks (1915-1916). However, the British secretly in the Sykes-Picot agreement promissed to divide the region with France and Russia. And finally, in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, they promised the Jewes, whose help was needed during the war, a Jewish "national home" in Palestine.

After the formation of the Nazi Party, in 1933, Jewish immigration increased greatly and fear of Jewish domination caused an Arab revolt in 1936-1939. Britain had restricted Jewish immigration

After WWII Britain refused access to 100000 Jewish survivors but many entered illegally.
Britain declared the problem unworkable and required UN intervention in April 1947.
A military conflict was inevitable and although there were more then twice more Palestinians than Jewes, the Palestinians leaders were still in exile after the Arab revolt (1936-1939) and the Jewes were better armed and prepared. The Palestinians were defeated.

Who has rights to the lands?
Obviously the answer is not easy to find and either side should make concessions to reach a compromise.

Everyone knows that "Might, makes Right". So, in that light, Israel, backed by the U.S. has land rights.

True!

But just as British decisions (with "good intentions") of many years ago contributed to the Middle East mess of today, American ("good will") decisions of today might lead to many more years of the same or worse.

Again, the word "Palestinian" specifically referred to the Jews, and around the turn of the last century would have offended an Arab had you called him that.
We can go as far back in history as you want, but that has little bearing on current events. As you well know, Before the Balfour manner of settling the fueding and bloodshed, the area was not carved into the states we see today. Of the land area, Israel has only a very small portion of it, yet still, to the Arab, that is too much. Rather than assimilate the people that they coerced into standing against Israel and with them, they use them as pawns, regardless of the hardship it places upon their own brethren, in order to have leverage against the Israelis. Lookit, the king of Jordan years ago (the 70's?) stated the Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan, yet the "Palestinians are not welcomed in that state. Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt...who among them have welcomed the Palestinians? This is not the only case of such incidents, you'll find similar cases in Europe the last century, yet the people did not up and stay in camps for decades. Look at the history (try the last 100 or so years, instaed of going back several hundred years) and look at the scene objectively instead of an anti-Jewish manner.

Well J-B, you speak for me and the vast majority of people I've spoken to about these issues in the UK.

It's a shame ATS is infested with pro-Israeli nutcases that can't see the imbalance of providing $4Billion military aid to Israel and withholding a puny amount of civilian aid to the Palestinians. Is it such a surprise that the Palestinians are angry at the US when the US is so blatantly one-sided?

$4 Billion..?? Try a number closer to $100 Billion. See the bottom of This Story for some nice numbers

[Edited on 15-4-2004 by dbates]

I am not anti Jewish!
I see your point and I agree with some of it.
The amazing thing is that many Jews are actually "related" to other arabs - Mizrachi Jews.
And obviously, they don't need to form one state just because they are all related or speak similar languages.
Your suggestion that the arabs should all "get together" is illogical. Should all South American countries form one state only because under Spanish/Portuguese rule they didn't "exist"?
Should Austria become part of Germany because they are almost "the same"? The Mesopotamian Arabs were not exactly all "the same" either.
Obviously Israel has the right to exist as a state and in many ways it is already amazing. It is enough to look down from the top of Haifa to be in awe!
You should think though that for many simple "Palestinian" Arabs what matters most is that they have been forced to move from were some were living for hundreds of years, without a right of return. From their point of view they have been deceived by the world powers (mainly the British) who promissed they will stay were they were as independent states after the Ottoman Rule and even now when they barely have any territories left they lose them gradually to Jewish settlements.
I remember asking my Jewish friends if they thought Israel was supra-populated or if they seriously thought they couldn't survive as a state unless they expanded their territory and the answer was always the same: no!
All most of them want is peace and security!


[Edited on 15-4-2004 by harap.alb]

Exactly. Notice nobody ever talks about the Palestinian-Arabs that were displaced in Jordan by the immigrating Hashemites back in the 1920’s when Britton set aside all that land for them.