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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| How did the Palestinians descend into barbarism? |
| 2005-10-22 |
| by Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal EFL'd -- go read it all . . . In the first nine months of 2005 more Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians than by Israelis--219 to 218, according to the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Interior, although the former figure is probably in truth much higher. In the Gaza Strip, the departure of Israeli troops and settlers has brought anarchy, not freedom. Members of Hamas routinely fight gun battles with members of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas's ruling political party. Just as often, the killing takes place between clans, or hamullas. So-called collaborators are put to the gun by street mobs, their "guilt" sometimes nothing more than being the object of a neighbor's spite. Palestinian social outsiders are also at mortal risk: Honor killings of "loose" women are common, as is the torture and murder of homosexuals. Atop this culture of violence are the Hamas and Fatah leaders, the hamulla chieftains, the Palestinian Authority's "generals" and "ministers." And standing atop them--theoretically, at least--is the Palestinian president. All were raised in this culture; most have had their uses for violence. For Arafat, those uses were to achieve mastery of his movement, and to harness its energies to his political purpose. Among Palestinians, his popularity owed chiefly to the fact that under his leadership all this violence achieved an astonishing measure of international respectability. . . . The Palestinian president leads a society in which dignity and violence have long been entwined, in which the absence of the latter risks the loss of the former. This is not to say that Mr. Abbas himself is a violent man. But his fate as a politician rests in the hands of violent men, and so far he has shown no appetite for confronting them. . . . |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #8 The ARABS in the West Bank and Gaza deserve no sympathy. The act of getting on a bus with women and children and blowing them up defines itself. There is NO justification for such an act. Perhaps when they choose to join the human race. Until then, put a high wall around them and watch them victimize each other. |
| Posted by: SR-71 2005-10-22 16:39 |
| #7 Debka: Bush to Abu Mazen: The Palestinians Must Start Helping Themselves The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas did not get much chance to lay down his usual list of demands and gripes in his talks at the White House with US president George W. Bush Thursday, Oct. 20. Instead, in contrast to the jovial mood of their joint news conference, Bush crushed his visitorâs hopes of a Palestinian state in the foreseeable future. âNot during my term,â the president declared firmly, according to DEBKAfileâs Exclusive sources Washington. [..] |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-10-22 15:44 |
| #6 #1... It is neither a conceit or a lie. It is the bitter pill Israel must swallow: to put this miserable and ridiculously long strife between Palestinians and Israelis down for the sake of their families, friends and children, land will be yielded. Not all the land from the river to the sea, which is what the savages demand, but a contiguous land that includes some natural resources for the Palestinians. I must take issue with this notion, jules 2. The Palestinians have done absolutely nothing to merit such fair treatment. Only when they, as an entire people, renounce terrorism, their endless hatred for the Jews and any intention of violently commandeering all of Israel's land, can there even begin any discussion of allocating further resources to them. Anything short of this is rewarding terrorism and a blot upon all rationality. I'll include some choice nuggets from the article: Mr. Abbas himself made no mention of the words "terrorism" or "terrorists." But he did demand the release of those he called "prisoners of freedom," now being held in Israeli jails. So long as Abu Let the Palestinians cull themselves from their bloodsoaked patch of filth. It is their just reward. Mr. Tirawi had bullied a 14-year-old boy into becoming a suicide bomber by threatening to denounce him as a "collaborator," which in Palestinian society frequently amounts to a death sentence. Blackmailing the flower of their youth into self-destruction is but one of many symptoms expressed by this moral cancer. And then there is 21-year-old Wafa Samir al-Bis, who was detained in June after the explosives she was carrying failed to detonate at an Israeli checkpoint on the border with Gaza. As Ms. Bis later testified, her target was an Israeli hospital where she had previously been treated--as a humanitarian gesture--for burns suffered in a kitchen accident. "I wanted to kill 20, 50 Jews," she explained at a press conference after her arraignment. The depths of ingratitude routinely exhibited by these cretins quite simply voids any responsibility for outside parties to make even the least concessions towards the Palestinians. Such blinked rapacity must be made into its own reward. If not for the Palestinians, then for all others who embrace terrorism as a political or religious tool. The practicioners of such barbarity must be shown nothing but an iron fist and the doorway to hell as their just desserts. For Mr. Abbas, the problem is that statehood and dignity are not a package. They are a choice. And if history is any guide, the choice he must make is not one he is likely to survive. Should Abbas succumb to the divisions within his electorate's own ranks, it will serve as a bellwether for the outside world's continued participation in rebuilding even another stick of the Palestinians' sh!thole of a state. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-10-22 15:05 |
| #5 What's with this "Descend" word? When Lawerance was fighting the Ottomans there they were already Barbarians... There is no descend. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-10-22 15:00 |
| #4 because it's easier to seethe and play the victim while getting vicarious thrills from the occasional killing of the Joooooo enemy than to step up and do the harder work of restraining themselves, and building a successful society. They get what they deserve, a hell hole of factionalism, corruption, hate, fighting, and despair. Fuck 'em |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-10-22 14:37 |
| #3 How did the Palestinians descend into barbarism? Simple. For the longest time, they were led by one. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-10-22 14:09 |
| #2 Ok. Let's have the Arab states give some of that land and of those natural resources. For instance some of the oil wells of the Sinai, who BTW was discovered by the Israelis. |
| Posted by: JFM 2005-10-22 13:52 |
| #1 An excellent article. This tack, however, should be reexamined. It is in no one's best interest to approach the problem in this way: "Talk to Palestinians, and you will often hear it said, like a mantra, that Palestinian dignity requires Palestinian statehood. This is either a conceit or a lie. Should a Palestinian state ever come into existence in Gaza and the West Bank, it will be a small place, mostly poor, culturally marginal, most of it desert, rock, slums and dust. " It is neither a conceit or a lie. It is the bitter pill Israel must swallow: to put this miserable and ridiculously long strife between Palestinians and Israelis down for the sake of their families, friends and children, land will be yielded. Not all the land from the river to the sea, which is what the savages demand, but a contiguous land that includes some natural resources for the Palestinians. Let us demand progress on the part of Palestinians, publicly, for the first time in years. Let us continue on this tack to debilitate terrorists. Let us continue to pressure Abbas and the Palestinians on Hamas and their ilk. Let us put out a changed vision for Palestinians, that even a faint hope of self-rule and national authonomy is the way of dignity-not violence. It is the most honorable thing they could do to restore the honor of their culture. What other option is there, in our best interest? |
| Posted by: jules 2 2005-10-22 12:47 |