I have had the opportunity to watch the events in Israel over the last few days. The images of strength, courage, love, despair, loss, but most especially promise and hope for the future are staggering. I certainly wish our friend Rog all the best for any family or friends he might have in harm's way.

I commend the Israelis for taking this bold step toward peace. I pray for the best outcome for their nation and that the burdens of the displaced settlers will be as light as possible. I also pray that the Palestinians will find the courage to reign in the terrorists in their midst and make the most of this opportunity to establish a free, prosperous, and peaceful Palestinian land in Gaza.

I find it difficult to describe my feelings associated with WATCHING people physically removing fellow countrymen (even relatives and friends) from their homes to hand over land to their recent attackers in the hopes of peace with no guarantees whatsoever...and a cheering section of enemies saying they caused this to happen by terror. To think of the strength required to DO this evacuation...unbelievable! I only hope the US could muster this much strength and national will if it was required.

Again, I humbly and sincerely offer my prayers for the best possible outcome and true peace for all the people of good will.
H.

Israel proves it wants peace.

Yes Israel does prove it wants peace, unfortunately I don't see them getting it. There have been attempts in the past to turn over the strip and every time somebody attacks isreali troops.

I hope I'm wrong, but I feel that Israels withdrawing like this only encourages the terrorist.

Israelis are a bunch of fools if they think they can buy peace with this measure.

its good that they make an efford to become peace but it isn't enough i don't really understand those israelis who go live there in palestinia it's not fair towards the palestinians they have got the right for their own country.The palestinians haven't got the right to attack israeli troops too off course.

Last Edited : Sunday, 21 August 2005 - 15:34

The Palestinians have no country. Rightfully all that land is Israel's.
Hamas is already saying the West Bank is next then onto Jerusalem. This move is a wasted gesture. Israel has a long fight ahead

TL

The moral high ground is worth a lot, and this certainly confirms Israel has it.

Why are they being made to leave?
Why would anyone settle where there is so much risk (i.e. even of this eviction)?
There are places in the world where the risk is so high of certain natural and unnatural phenomena that you can't get insurance to protect your property.

Who administered the government of these territories (i.e. who collected the taxes and was anyone exempt)?
I mean I can't imagine 99.4% of the population of Gaza who are Palestinians paying taxes to Israel or .6% of the population which is NOT Palestinian paying taxes to a Palestinian government.

To be honest I can't believe that anyone would give up their home or any government would agree to leave a territory and physically remove their people unless they conceded and agreed that they shouldn't have been there and they have been there for 38 years.
However, admittedly, it does take great moral strength to execute this exodus but it's just too bad that so much strife couldn't have been avoided by some common sense.

I mean after WWII, weren't the borders of most of the combatants re-established? Didn't former Russian satellite countries regain their borders?
Granted if Hitler, Mussolini and Togo defeated the allies, we would probably be looking at the borders of their countries today;
but thank God, freedom and democracy prevailed.

www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/abraham.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_Palestine#Palestine_Defined

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank

TR

I agree with Mog, the moral high-ground is worth what they've given up here.. Without morality to stand on, Palestinian terrorists might have won out a long time ago..
I'll even say that if the Palestinian militants had learned to protest in a NON-VIOLENT manner, things would have turned in their favor..

I think Sharone plans to throw this goodwill gesture on the table when he decides to carve a final border for the two-state plan..

International support is what Israel needs to keep its land secure

When the Israeli defense forces move in with tanks and bulldozers into Palestinian towns and demolish dozens of homes to make room for settlements it is never reported in your American mainstream news channels. Isn't that interesting?

How was that land acquired that is now being given up by Israel? How many houses/settlements have been removed just now? I assume the Israeli defense forces that are freed up because of this will head to consolidate the West Bank.. How many more houses/settlements will be built in the West Bank?

Palestinians get shot to death for throwing rocks while I didn't see a single armed soldier/policeman handling the acid spraying settlers.

The only International support Israel receives is from the US on which it has a very powerful influence. Perhaps there will be more contries supporting Isreal because of this action, or maybe perhaps after it removes the internationally condemned 9 meter wall it has built in the West Bank.

Whichever State is more powerful then that State is right. There will be no peace between Israel and Palestine until there is a balance of power in the region, and that is not something that will happen to be in the forseeable future.


And if this post isn't satisfying enough, here's some more reading: www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=7022

Last Edited : Monday, 22 August 2005 - 02:15

i agree with chiron the actions of the israeli never get the news but every time a palestinian does something it's in every newspaper.

and TheLix you don't know if the palestinians have never tried to protest in a non-violent manner, i'm even sure they tried it, but i don't think it had a lot of effect on the israeli tanks rolling over their houses to place an israeli settlement.

Last Edited : Monday, 22 August 2005 - 05:20

Isreal acquired those lands in the late 1960's when they aere attacked by 4 Muslim nations. The defeated these nations and actually captured lands that they owned. Isreal retaliation in Gaza and the West Bank are becasue their citizens have been brutality murderd by suicide bombers in the streets. Palistine is a pro terrorist nation and I doubt anything short of the death of all Jews will prevent the terrorism there.

Chiron and Salva do not support the terrorist, support the peace.

It's all a screwed up situation, whereby the UN thought it would be great to create a new county for the Jews after WWII. Let's put them in Israel, because, once upon a time that's where they lived! Oh, yah, nevermind all the Palestinians who have been living there ever since Israel was destroyed by Rome around 100 AD(so really, the Jews have no real claim to the land). I think it would be similar to the UN telling the United States that they should give up control of everything West of the Mississippi and that the Native Americans now control that part of the nation. How would you feel? Would you fight to keep your land? Or would you be peaceful, and pack your bags and leave? There is no quick end to this. I think we could have this same conversation 20 years from now...I am just thankful I live where I do.

Well Nebuchadnezer,
there's some truth that the past ownership of the land can be questioned because the Israelites or Hebrews did actually control the land of Israel intermittently in very ancient history, after defeating the native Cannanites and sea people known as the Phillistines at about 1800 BC;
but then there was the bondage in Egypt for a few hundred years followed by Moses leading them back to the "promissed land" followed by the defeat of a few more local tribes.

Then the Babylonians conquered Israel and sent the Israelites or Hebrews back to captivity in Mesopotamia or present day Iraq for a few hundred years. Finally a Persian named Cyrus the Great decided to conquer the world, and he did succeed to hold the largest empire ever in recorded history.
Cyrus the Great freed the Hebrews in about 530 BC and sent them back to Israel, but then another conquerer named Alexander the Great made the land of Israel part of his empire at about 330 BC until the Romans took control a short time before the birth of Jesus Christ.

In the meantime with each abscence from Israel of the Hebrews, the local native populations were being replenished and mixed with people from Egypt and Greece to Babylon and when the Romans arrived on the scene, they named the country Palestine apparently for the native people who were supposedly descended from the Phillistine sea people who according to legend arrived in present day Gaza from the Agean sea (i.e. also allowing the Romans to rationalize that people from the west had a previous claim to the territory).

The Hebrews/Israelites base their original claim to Israel on a religious birthright called a covenant between Abraham and God whereby the land of Israel was promissed by God to the descendants of the son of Abaraham and Sarah and of course it cannot be denied that the Israelites have struggled throughout history to return to the "promissed land" in an attempt to keep that covenant with God;
but more simply to claim the land to which they do believe they have an original claim the way any settler feels he has claimed land where he has built a home, tamed it, worked it and defended it from aggressors.

Finally, in more modern history Palestine unfortunately was like the tail of a porterhouse steak or rather a drumstick of a turkey known as the Ottoman Empire that cast it's lot with Hitler, and we Americans only side with the "good guys".
So even though our Native Americans west of the Mississippi can be compared to ancient history, it would take one of our old "bad guy" enemies to satyrrically punish us by stripping us of our western lands and returning it to it's original inhabitants.

Anyway the part that is being forgotten is that almost an entire people was exterminated from Europe, So was there a more appropriate reparation to those people than to return to them part of the land of their forefathers because Palestine was dragged into WWII by the Ottoman Empire who sided with the "bad guys"?
Well the Palestinians obviously didn't like the arrangement made by the British in 1948, but according to the following link, acts of terrorism by them started after the seizure of Gaza and the West Bank:

www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/index.cfm?docid=5902

TR

Prior to WWII that land was owned by the British Empire, not by the Palistinians. Then the Ottomans before that. They never had a country to start with, the country was never taken from them. Britian gave up the lands for the Jews.

The Ottomans never allied with Hitler. They did ally with the kaiser though during WWI. I believe the Jews forced Britain to give up Palestine through terrorism which then allowed the creation of Israel but I am no expert on this subject. The Jews did have certain terrorist groups like the Stern gang and others that attacked the British.

Yes I was mistaken ... only Syria and Lebanon collaborated with the Germans and I didn't realise that Turkey managed to stay neutral in WWII confusing their participation in WWI on the side of Germany.
Palestine actually provided a base of operations for the allies to counter-attack the Germans.
However, I wonder why there hasn't ever been mention that the British prevented the escape of refugees from Europe to Palestine. It can be considered that the arrangement made in Palestine in 1948 may possibly have been an atonement by the British to the Israelies.

TR

PS:
I have to conclude that there is much we don't know about the division of Palestine by the UN into the states of Israel and Palestine on November 29, 1947 after the British decided they wanted to terminate their mandate by May of 1948 as I understand from the following link:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_of_Palestine

I also have to conclude that the only reason Palestine was on the side of the allies is because it was occupied by the British ... otherwise there was much Nazi sentiment. The conflict started early and resulted in acts of terrorism from both sides on up to the outbreak of WWII with the Israelis even targeting the British which after an attack in 1946 with over 90 British killed led to the British decision to leave.

The British seem to have tried to appease the Arabs for allied support by disallowing immigration into Palestine of refugees attempting to escape the Nazis persecution, which naturally would alienate themselves with the Israelis;
and very early the British managed to antagonize the Israelis by using the words "national homeland" NOT to mean "national state" to so to speak welch on an agreement in the following:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration%2C_1917

Please observe that according to the first link Palestine was partitioned by the UN on 11/29/1947 into two states. If you want to say that the fact that the Palestinians didn't accept the partition nullifies that the UN declared the partition of Palestine into two states ... sorry, I don't think that is a valid argument ...

I Am sorry that I didn't pay closer attention to movies like "Exodus" and "Lawrence of Arabia" though.

TR

its not really important wheter it's the country of the palestinians or not, fact is that they live there.What would you do when people come to the city you live in, smash your houses and come live there, even when the country is actually theirs.

And i don't think it's right to call the iseali side "peace" and the palestinian side "terrorism".

Israli action against Palistine is a REaction to the terrorism of Hammas and others. These terrorist are supported and actually sponsered by the Government and the people of Palistine.

There would be no killing or attacks by Isreal if there were no killing and attack by the Islamic peopl. The base root of all of this is Islam. It is a religion that advocates and promotes violence. The Koran tells them to kill nonbelievers.

I heard an intresting comment yesterday; Moderate Muslims are the ones that only want to kill Jews.