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StellaSlight · 03-29-2004, 09:22 PM

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Posted by AB :

First, don't bother citing the RED CROSS/RED CRESCENT/RED NOTHING ELSE. Beyond being an anti-semitic organization, it's also the group who messed up Canada's blood supply. They're both incompetent and biased.

The Red Cross, although they might have had a problem with blood's supply in Canada, have done tremendous things in the poorest countries in the world, and since Palestine is among them, I don't see why they would be biased to make a point of showing the living conditions of the Palestinians for the past decade, and also to denounce a barrier that is obviously totally unfair. Gee, it's not like the Red Cross has been the only humanitarian organization to denounce the wall. The Human Right Commission has also done the same, as did the the UN's special rapporteur for the occupied territories. Amnesty International and Medecins Sans Fronti�res have also worded their worries about the violation of human rights about it (only to cite some of them). People who are against the new map imposed by the barrier aren't necessarily biased, but perhaps really concerned about the human rights. But since you are obviously biased to the cause of Israel, I guess it's useless to try to convince you of that.

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Posted by AB :

You can't deny that Israel has repeatedly sought peace (most notably under Rabin and Barak), while Arafat refused to even make a counter-proposal. That matters very much.

You're changing history. Arafat was as willing to seek peace as Rabin in the 90's, and both won the Nobel Peace Prize (along with Shimon Peres), remember?

And that was before Netanyahu went to power.

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Posted by AB :

Yes, Israel is going to take some land, but the wall will also exclude settlements - and Sharon is committed to withdrawing from land. It should be noted that Israel has been repeatedly attacked, and won numerous wars of self-defense. Historically, all that territory would be forfeited by the Arabs after the first war they launched and lost. Israel, facing extermination, seeks defensible borders. That's certainly understandable. Some settlements have to be abandoned, yes - but that's already government policy.

So Sharon decides to dismantle most settlements only to take more land, and it's acceptable? So everything is a sort of I-give-you-this-but-I-take-this-from-you deal?

The settlements have always been a problem. A major problem.

One might argue that the settlements violate many of the international laws (especially the Geneva Convention), while Israel claims that the majority of the land currently taken by the new settlements was either vacant, belonging to the state (from which it was leased) or bought fairly from the Palestinians, arguing on these three bases that there is nothing illegal about the settlements. Whether you agree with the existence of those settlements or not, it has been clear that those are an obstacle to peace and a cause for tensions. On one hand Palestinians has argued that Israel has violated the Oslo accords by continuing to expand the settlements after the signing of the accords. On the other hand Israel has pointed out that in the Oslo accords, the Palestinians accepted at least the temporary presence of Israeli settlements, and has argued back that the PLO instead violated the Oslo accords by not dismantling the terrorist organisations and by inciting their population to hate. Palestinians and other Arab states regularly accuse Israel of attacking refugee camps and villages in an attempt to scare off Palestinians and claim the land as theirs. Israel justifies that it only fights against those terrorist organisations, and if there would be no terrorists, there wouldn't be any military operations. And Palestine wants to avenge the attacks by... etc. etc. yada-yada.
Vicious circle again, can't you see?

But beyond the political problem of the settlements, the cost invested in the settlements is too high. A report published by Ha'aretz on September 26, 2003, claimed that the non-military expenditure on the settlements was conservatively $560 million per year in excess of the usual expenditure on a similar number of ordinary Israeli citizens. The cost of the protection of the same settlements makes it even worse.

So when Sharon decided to dismantle most of the settlements, it wasn't a sacrifice. It was a sensible choice : strategically (because Israel could be regarded as THE ONE who took the first step in favour of peace), politically (because lots of nations, and even their allies the US, like in 1991 with the first Bush administration, were opposed to the settlemtents), economically (because the costs for the settlements were too high), and electorally (because the public opinion in Israel was more and more critical towards the question of the settlements cf: Q&A, Sharon's Gaza settlements plan).

So, the question of the settlements and the one of the barrier are totally independant, and totally different. Sharon shouldn't be 'rewarded' with a part of the Palestinian land because he decided to withdraw from another side of the territory.

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Posted by AB :

Military means may not solve the situation, but they will reduce the number and effectiveness of terror attacks. And until there is a real change of leadership among the Palestinians, there's no point trying negotiations again.

You're describing the politics that has been adopted for the past 3/4 years, and unfortunately I don't see any improvement to the situation. And if one is to wait to a change of leadership among the Palestinians, one must be really really patient because the current situation in the world and in their country won't incite them to change it into a more pro-western/Israel/democracy leadership.