Israel/Palestine Thread Part XXX

[Virus]

Must We Waste Another Year?
Michael J. Totten - 02.26.2010 - 8:40 AM

The United States is re-establishing ties with Damascus and hoping to lure Syria away from Iran, but Lebanese scholar Tony Badran warns the Obama administration that Syria’s President Bashar Assad is laying a trap. The U.S., he writes in NOW Lebanon, needs to avoid making concessions until Assad “makes verifiable and substantial concessions on key Washington demands, not least surrendering Syrian support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Otherwise, Assad may dictate the avenues, conditions and aims of the engagement process.”

Syria has been cunningly outwitting Americans and Europeans for decades, and most Western leaders seem entirely incapable of learning from or even noticing the mistakes of their predecessors. Assad is so sure of himself this time around — and, frankly, he’s right to be — that he’s already announced the failure of President Obama’s outreach program. Yesterday he openly ridiculed the administration’s policy in a joint press conference with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Syria will not abandon its alliance with Iran, nor will it cease and desist its support for terrorist groups, until at least one of the two governments in question has been replaced. The alliance works for both parties. While Assad’s secular Arab Socialist Baath Party ideology differs markedly from Ali Khamenei’s Velayat-e Faqih, “resistance” is at the molten core of each one. Syria’s and Iran’s lists of enemies — Sunni Arabs, Israel, and the United States — are identical.

Understand the lay of the land. Syria is no more likely to join the de facto American-French-Egyptian-Saudi-Israeli coalition than the U.S. is likely to defect to the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis. It’s as if the U.S. were trying to pry East Germany out of the Communist bloc during the Cold War before the Berlin Wall was destroyed.

No basket of carrots Barack Obama or anyone else can offer will change Assad’s calculation of his own strategic interests. His weak military and Soviet-style economy would instantly render his country as geopolitically impotent as Yemen if he scrapped his alliance with Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Today, though, he’s the most powerful Arab ruler in the Levant. Because he contributes so much to the Middle East’s instability and starts so many fires in neighboring countries, he’s made himself an “indispensable” part of every fantasy solution Western diplomats can come up with. He wouldn’t be where he is without Iranian help, and that help will be more valuable than ever if and when Tehran produces nuclear weapons.

Last month Obama admitted he was “too optimistic” about his ability to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that it’s “just really hard.” Prying Syria away from Iran won’t be any easier. As Tony Badran points out in his NOW Lebanon piece, the United States has been trying to drive the two countries apart now for more than 25 years.

Obama has not been paying attention if he thinks “engagement” with Syria hasn’t been tried. Badran alone has been documenting the futility of Western attempts to cut deals with Damascus ever since I started reading him, almost six years ago. The problem itself is much older than that, of course. It goes all the way back to the 1970s. Many of us who have been following Syria for some time were exhausted by the failure of “engagement” before we had ever even heard of Barack Obama.

The administration has already lost a year to the locusts with its “peace process” to nowhere and its “engagement” with Iran. A whole range of options exists between negotiating with murderers and invading their countries, and it’s long past time they were applied.

It won’t be Obama’s fault when his Syria strategy fails, but it is his fault that he’s wasting time trying. The president really ought to have learned by now that reaching out to terror-supporting tyrants in the Middle East is a mug’s game. His charm, sincerity, and inherent reasonableness count for little in a hard region where leaders almost everywhere rule at the point of a gun, and where the docile and the weak are bullied or destroyed by the ruthless.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs ... ten/246731

[Lucy Wiggin]

UN passes Goldstone report resolution
General Assembly approves proposal by Arab League calling on Ban Ki-moon to report on probes of Operation Cast Lead in five months; but Israel's ambassador asks, 'Who will investigate on Palestinian side?'
Yitzhak Benhorin
Published: 02.26.10, 18:43 / Israel News
WASHINGTON – The UN General Assembly approved Friday an Arab League proposal by which Secretary-Genral Ban Ki-moon will report on progress made by both Israel and the Palestinians in independent investigations of Operation Cast Lead, following the Goldstone report on the conflict.

Read it all

[Gawd]

Hey, Virus, this may be hard for you to believe, but Syria isn't part of Palestine and it's not part of Israel (at least if the Israeli's are satisfied with land grabbing Palestine).

[Virus]

So what? Syria and Iran are integral players in the conflict and it matters how the US deal with them. Without these rogue states backing the rejectionists the peace process might make a few shuffles forward.

[Gawd]

So what? Syria and Iran are integral players in the conflict and it matters how the US deal with them. Without these rogue states backing the rejectionists the peace process might make a few shuffles forward.

"Rejectionists"? Oh, you must mean the Israeli's who reject "non-Jewish" refugees because they are not "Jews".

[Virus]

No, by "rejectionists" I mean the desire of terrorists and rogue states to wipe out and abolish an entire country. Are you saying that Iran and Syria aren't a problem, it's Israeli immigration policy that is?

[Gawd]

No, by "rejectionists" I mean the desire of terrorists and rogue states to wipe out and abolish an entire country. As unfair as Israeli immigration policy might be, the two aren't even remotely equivalent.

"Terrorists"? Oh, you must mean the IDF and Israel that desires to wipe out Palestinian civilians and land grab what they don't have.

[Virus]

"Terrorists"? Oh, you must mean the IDF and Israel that desires to wipe out Palestinian civilians and land grab what they don't have.

The land-grabbing is done by crackpot factions that don't always work in lock-step with the government and the government has never stated a desire to wipe out all Palestinians.

[Gawd]

"Terrorists"? Oh, you must mean the IDF and Israel that desires to wipe out Palestinian civilians and land grab what they don't have.

The land-grabbing is done by crackpot factions that don't always work in lock-step with the government and the government has never stated a desire to wipe out all Palestinians.

1400 murdered Palestinians civilians in the Gaza Massacre and deliberate use of white phosphorous to BURN many others alive say otherwise.

[Virus]

Collateral damage during defense against rocket fire. That's not an attempt to wipe the Palestinians out of existence.

[Gawd]

Collateral damage during defense against rocket fire. That's not an attempt to wipe the Palestinians out of existence.

That's anti-Semitic to say that murdering 1400 Palestinian civilians and BURNING many others alive is "collateral damage" when the IDF and Israel did little else than to shoot at civilians and tear down vital housing, schools, and hospitals. You don't want to be an anti-Semite, do you Virus?

[secularist]

Collateral damage during defense against rocket fire. That's not an attempt to wipe the Palestinians out of existence.

That's anti-Semitic to say that murdering 1400 Palestinian civilians and BURNING many others alive is "collateral damage" when the IDF and Israel did little else than to shoot at civilians and tear down vital housing, schools, and hospitals. You don't want to be an anti-Semite, do you Virus?

first the term anti semitic has definition, and it is not about Palestinians.
Now being racist is not different than being anti semitic (that is also racism).
However Virus is NOT racist against Palestinians .
Second many if not most of this so called "Palestinians" were actually hamas members.
Third if Israel wanted it could have exterminated the Palestinians.


By the way you sound like a broken record of David duke, anther non anti semitic guy that "only criticize Israel".

[Valden]

Collateral damage during defense against rocket fire. That's not an attempt to wipe the Palestinians out of existence.

That's anti-Semitic to say that murdering 1400 Palestinian civilians and BURNING many others alive is "collateral damage" when the IDF and Israel did little else than to shoot at civilians and tear down vital housing, schools, and hospitals. You don't want to be an anti-Semite, do you Virus?

first the term anti semitic has definition, and it is not about Palestinians.
Now being racist is not different than being anti semitic (that is also racism).
However Virus is NOT racist against Palestinians .
Second many if not most of this so called "Palestinians" were actually hamas members.
Third if Israel wanted it could have exterminated the Palestinians.


By the way you sound like a broken record of David duke, anther non anti semitic guy that "only criticize Israel".

Actually because Palestinians are Semitic, the term anti-Semitic can be applied to them as well. It's just normally applied to only Jews. However, they don't have a monopoly over how the term is used, and can't claim that is can be applied to only them.

And so anyone who's racist towards Palestinians is also anti-Semitic.

[Lucy Wiggin]

Former prisoners reveal torture in Palestinian prisons

In broadcast dealing with one of most sensitive issues in Palestinian society, former prisoners in Gaza, West Bank provide painful testimonies of interrogation methods. Fatah admits phenomenon exists, while Hamas denies it, says 'prisons open to human rights groups'
Roee Nahmias

Captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has not been afforded even one visit to his unknown whereabouts since he was taken captive by Hamas.

While his family, as well as security prisoners being held in Israeli prisoners have pled that this be rectified, it seems as though the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Hamas and Fatah jails is far from upholding basic human rights – especially on the backdrop of the rift between PA regime in the West Bank and the Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip.

The BBC Arabic broadcast a special program this week during which two former Palestinian prisoners, one from Fatah and one from Hamas, gave accounts of their experiences in Palestinian jail. The two unfurled testimonies of a web of serious abuse at the hands of Palestinian investigators, both from Hamas and the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian security services.

In the program, which was broadcast in a "commission of inquiry" format, the two prisoners claimed that torture during interrogations is a widespread practice. According to the data presented, some 100 Fatah member are being held in Hamas jails in the Gaza Strip, while some 500 Hamas members are jailed in the PA.

Speaking via satellite, a spokesperson from the Hamas interior ministry was quick to deny the allegations and provided an alternate version of events.

"There is no torture in our jails, and they are open to everyone. Human rights organizations follow the issue and make regular visits. All the media outlets can come and visit the facilities. Our interrogators are not masked, and every interrogation is listed in the minutes," said the spokesperson, Ehab a-Roussin.

However, the spokesperson's optimism did not succeed in unseating the testimony of Bilal Qawara, 22 from the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, who comes from a family of Fatah supporters.

Wheelchair-bound, recounted what he endured at the hands of Hamas after being arrested in 2007 in an incident that killed two of his brothers.

"My life turned upside down. Before, I walked everywhere, and now – nothing. I just sit in my wheelchair and need someone to take be in order to go down the stairs," said the young man painfully. "Hamas broke into my house and snatched me away. I was interrogated for six hours. Afterwards, they threw me onto the street and shot me. I don't know who did it," Qawara recounted.

Since his injury, Bilal has undergone lengthy medical treatments in hospitals in the Gaza Strip and Israel. He is currently hospitalized in Ramallah.

'Hung in the air for full day'
It seems as though the situation on the other side is no better. Azzam al-Fahal, a bakery owner near Ramallah, was arrested last year by the Palestinian General Intelligence Services for membership in Hamas. Al-Fahal, a father of two, was suspected of holding arms. He was released only after promising to cease his activities.

In the BBC interview, he told of the horrors he endured for the two weeks he was jailed. "They handcuffed my hands and feet and beat me for an hour and a half. Afterwards, they put me in a cell in which I could neither sit nor stand.

"Moreover, the torture also had a psychological element as I was witness to the torture of Sheikh Majd al-Barghouti (who, according to Hamas, died as a result of the torture). My hands were tied with metal cuffs and I was hung in the air for an entire day," he recounted.

Unlike Hamas, the spokesperson for the PA General Intelligence Service in the West Bank General Adnan a-Demeiri admitted on the program that torture during interrogation and imprisonment does in fact exist. He emphasized that the torture is initiated and undertaken by insubordinate prison officers, who afterwards are tried for their actions.

"There are violations, but there is no policy of torture. We have tried officers that have strayed from orders. I do not deny that there were individual violations on the matter, but that was in the past. The situation now is different can be tracked," the Fatah spokesman said.

A-Demeir added, "More than 300 soldiers and officers have been tried for violating orders on torture-related matters or for harming personal dignity. This all comes on the backdrop of orders we receive from (Palestinian President) Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) to maintain the dignity of the prisoners."

A-Demeiri was joined on the program by a member of Fatah's Central Committee, Azzam al-Ahmad, who jeered at his Hamas rivals.

"Allegations of torture started since the split with Hamas. I do not deny that there were a few instances in which investigations were done illegally, but the matter has been taken care of. Even in the best democracies there are cases like this because the use of pain is a human phenomenon that exists everywhere, and we are fighting it.

"Until now, the security forces have not stuck to all 100% of the law, but the situation is getting better. Hamas does worse things than what happens in the West Bank," al-Ahmad said.

Another Hamas representative participating in the program, former minister Dr. Omar Abd al-Razeq, rejected these claims and pointed a finger back at Fatah.

"We condemn any use of torture and arrests on a political basis or organizational affiliation. Since the end of 2008, we did not make any political arrests. But if the subject has already been brought up, the PA authorities are the ones who torture in a variety of ways – be it wetting their cells or arresting their family members and threatening them," asserted al-Razeq.

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/Articl ... 17,00.html

[secularist]

Actually because Palestinians are Semitic, the term anti-Semitic can be applied to them as well. It's just normally applied to only Jews. However, they don't have a monopoly over how the term is used, and can't claim that is can be applied to only them.

And so anyone who's racist towards Palestinians is also anti-Semitic.

this is off topic but you are wrong.
The term anti semitic has definition and it has nothing with monopoly but with the definition of word.

It doesn't talk about semitic generally but about Jews specifically.