Mecca-Medina-Qom.

How long must Israel keep the gloves on, waiting for the US to do its thing in Iraq? I'm almost beginning to believe that Bush's posturing is less about Iraq and more about keeping Israel in line.

Two explosions. Two is the hallmark of Al Qaeda.

Tel Aviv is nowhere near the so-called Green Line. Tell me again how the Pals are working to stop terorrism. I could use a good, bitter laugh.

MSNBC says 2 dead, 25 injured right now.

AP says 30 wounded.

MSNBC just said an Israeli station reports 10 to 15 dead.

Apparently, Israeli TV has shown footage of victims with nails protruding from their skin.

Maybe we can get someone in the US to show footage of the carnage. Start getting the worlds goddamned attention.

This is a war crime and an atrocity, and Arafat should be put in front of the Hague. As should Hassan Nasrallah. As should the rest.

Someone ought to start a petition to drag the leaders of these organizations in front of the Hague for blatantly committing war crimes and atrocities.

Sharon: "This ends now."

When will he say these magic words? What will it take?

If anyone finds a link to the news footage, please post it. I think my school should see where their EU money goes.

I am heartsick. May the dead know peace, and the survivors safety in the future.

And may the perpetrators suffer painful deaths and rot in hell.

Beyond that, words truly fail me.

 Would these bas**rds use nukes if they had them?

MSNBC is interviewing some jitstain legal advisor to the PA. Way to go.

"This is the only weapon we have. We don't get Apache helicopters and F-16s from America the way the Israelis do." On MSNBC right now.

And didn't a newspaper said a "lull" in attacks in Israel?

What lull? They tried daily!

And this fucker(s) managed to NOT get caught!

How much longer will Israel wait? Longer the wait, the more weapons aimed at Israel.

I think Israel should give Bush the ultimatum - we will exercise our rights to defend ourselves and it starts NOW!

JG

Lull?

Maariv reports 10 dead 30 wounded.
[Link: directory.kol-israel.com...]

They should hit Arafat's compound now. Every conventional weapon they have, concentrate it on the PA, Hamas, Fatah, IJ, Hezbollah, all known terrorists, kill them all. NOW.

"This is the only weapon we have. We don't get Apache helicopters and F-16s from America the way the Israelis do."

you wont have ANY weapons when your dead you piece of sh*t

I live in Tel Aviv, but quite a long way away from the site of this attack, a lot further north, but we could hear the blasts very clearly and loud (with closed windows). These were very big blasts. We had no doubt what we were hearing and this was soon confirmed when the ambulances started racing past.

TV is talking about 15 fatalities so far. This is the evening rush hour here and the ambulances are finding it hard to get to the site and then to get the people to hospital fast enough.

"This is the only weapon we have. We don't get Apache helicopters and F-16s from America the way the Israelis do."

Oh, you'll be getting them soon.

What can we do as pissed off individuals to make this B.S. stop? I don't like to sit in my house and feel helpless while innocent people are being murdered. I'd rather be doing something, anything, but I don't have any idea what.

Michael Tarazi is the legal adviser to the PLO who's speaking on MSNBC. What a despicable, despicable man. And what an ignorant reporter. She has no ammunition to answer his false accusations that the poor Palestinians are responding to Sharon's blah-blah-blah killing of 66 civilians, that Hamas and the others blah-blah-blah wanted to continue a cease-fire.

It's lie after lie after lie. When is an American journalist going to say, "Have you no shame! Time after time you use the occasion of a terrorist attack on defenseless Israeli civilians as a podium for anti-Israel propaganda. Come back when you have a conscience and a modicum of credibility."

MSNBC's Tom Aspell now says workers on the scene say there are at least 15 dead and more than 30 injured.

From the AP report:

"Egypt and Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement have been trying to persuade the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups to halt attacks on civilians in Israel. Talks in Cairo were to resume next week."

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

"There has been a lull recently in Palestinian attacks against Israelis..."

Will Washington Post revise/update their editorial?

J Post says at least 14 of the wounded are in serious condition.

#26 It's maddening that it will take something like this to maybe make the Washington Post speak a sliver of the truth. Palestinian groups attempt to commit terrorism on a daily basis. When they "succeed," we hear a little about it . . . and a lot from "the other side" about the fictitious root causes.

My wife's in Israel this week. I'm thankful that she and her group, a birthright Israel trip sponsored by Hillel, are in Jerusalem.

DEBKA says at least 40 injured, 7 in "very serious" condition.

A fitting response to the bombings would be to drop a daisy-cutter on the Afatrat's HQ in Ramallah.

Whiner, I heard that interview. She did ask tough questions, and then MSNBC got a reporter from the Jerusalem Post to respond.

The moron is on now saying that there were no attacks on Israeli civilians for a month and that Sharon "assassinated" nine civilians and invited a response.

Seven of those nine "civilians" were terrorists.

I take it back. She's bought his line completely and told him that the bombings are bad because they don't do anything for the cause.

Imshin, I am really glad to see you posting.

This is what Sharon wanted, and this is what Sharon got.

Michael Tarazi, the legal adviser to the PLO.

He tells lie after lie after lie after lie after lie . . . and the reporter just laps it all up. "Tell me more about occupation," she says.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

I am so sick and tired of reading stories like this. By nature, I am as peaceful as they come, but I swear if I could get my hands on the ones who perpetrated this atrocity or the ones who will be ululating about it, I would hurt them - badly.

from the J Post

Police reportedly estimated the two suicide bombers blew themselves up at an interval of about one minute, while seated in a local restaurant.

MSNBC says at least 17 dead now.

An analyst on Israel TV channel 2 commented that whatever Sharon does, or doesn't do, in response will be attacked and seen as part of his election campaign. He's in a tight spot here.

#22

I completely understand. I'm staring a history essay in the face, and I'm just thinking "what's the fucking point"? I want to break something. If ONE person breathes something anti-Semtitic at school... I'm holding my rage in now, but once the pictures come out amd the root causes people start their propaganda, I just don't know.

Sharon is speaking in around 20 minutes. 6pm Greenwich Mean Time.

To No. 22 --

Yes, you can do something. You can help make the truth known.

First -- make sure you have accurate facts. There are plenty of them on sites like IsraelFacts, Hasbara, Shmana, A Time To Speak, and many others.

Then -- get them out wherever and however you can.
Letters to newspapers, calls to radio and tv stations,
letters to congressmen and senators. Speak to local organizations -- an actress is especially good for that.

Even let the White House know that you do not want the US pushing Israel down its Roadmap to Hell.

And never ask "What can one person do?"
If everybody asked that, nobody would ever do anything.

One is better than none, and more will follow.

Meryl, I'm not saying that this MSNBC reporter is anti-Israel. She just doesn't know enough to call the PLO spokesman on his lies, distortions, etc. Yes, the Jerusalem Post report (Bender) did a fine job, but how ridiculous is the whole set-up? An Israeli journalist "against" a Palestinian representative on the occasion of a brutal Palestinian terrorist attack. The implicit belief that we must hear from "the other side" is ridiculous enough.

#37

There are Israeli politicians who'd take shots at him after this? Self-loathing Jews I've heard of, I know some. But at that level?

Not only is the Washington Post unlikely to correct its "lull" statement, but I just was watching CNN (sorry, but it's the only station that was covering the bombings when I happened to turn the TV on). Sure enough, CNN said, as part of this very story, "This is the first attack since November." So, not only do the bombings go on, but the media distortions go on, quite unabated.

I don't know about anyone else, but I need a drink. Homework can wait.

No photos yet, but here's a nice one from Gaza taken earlier this morning:

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

MSNBC has an Israeli Foreign Ministry rep on, and he says Islamic Jihad has taken responsibility for the attack.

I just fired off an email to MSNBC. This is a new low for them, and I didn't think they could go any lower. Absolutely rotten, disgusting behavior.

whats wrong with this MSNBC moron, Alex Witt.?

she keeps talking aout Israeli dead as being "taken out"..

how do these fnkn assholes get these jobs.?

why do they KEEP these jobs.?

DEBKA says the bombs contained BBs and fragments of metal.

No other country in the world, not even France, for God's sake, would tolerate this. Why must Israel? Israel's press can't get any worse, so why not just declare permanent sovereignty over the disputed territories, expell all Arabs in the territories and inside Israel and be done with it?

Israel is already accused of the non-existent Naqbah and of apartheid--why not make it true, since the accusations never go away but become believed by more and more people as memory fades and the wold becomes more idiotarian. Besides, who cares if they're practicing apartheid--no one requires the Saudis to accept Jews in their country. How many Jews live in the UAE? Kuwait? Jordan?

Actually doing what they are accused of will enhance their security, IMIO.

Israel TV channel 2 says it's up to 17 dead.

A lot of the wounded are illegal foreign workers and they're terrified of going to hospital for fear of being deported. The emergency services had to persuade them to get into the ambulances. Heartbreaking. Israel TV is giving out a phone number in English and urging the people to ring and find out about their loved ones and not to be afraid to ring even if they are illegal.

Anyone with nothing to do but seeth with rage should look through the yahoo slideshow on Israel.

The context of this attack:

The Palestinians will not ask Hamas to stop suicide attacks against Israel before the Palestinians make political gains, the head of the PLO's political department, Farouk Kaddoumi, said over the weekend.

Here is an AP article on the meeting where Kaddoumi spoke.

Debka says..

Jihad Islami`s Damascus HQ takes responsibility for dual terror attacks, the first of 2003.

who are Jihad Islami.?

I'm sick and fucking tired of the miserable quality of British news. I have FOUR news channels, not ONE is covering this.

Imshin--and doesn't that speak volumes? That there are illegal foreign (read: Arab) workers in Israel willing to risk being blown up says that it's still better than the shithole they have made of their own land. Had they spent even a tenth of the energy in building an economy rather than trying to erase Israel through violence, they'd actually have jobs in the territories, and no checkpoints, road blocks or curfews would have been necessary.

DEBKA now says at least 50 injured.

I suggest the following "staged plan" (in response to the PLOs):

(1) erect a gallows on Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, with a small noose of steel cable

(2) bodily drag Arafat to same

(3) string him up by his balls, leave him hanging for 24 hours

(4) insert the barrel of an M-16 assault rifle up his rectum, and put it on single-shot.

(5) everybody who lost a first-or second-degree relative gets to queue up to fire one (1) round from the gun. After all such people have had their "shot at him", the general public gets invited.

(6) whatever is left after Ararat meets the one he worships (the devil) gets mixed up with a truckload of pig manure, and dumped into the sea off the Gaza coast.

#55

Leading on from mommydoc, doesn't it say so much about Israel that even now they are given the same treatment as Israelis?

Photos from the scene are starting to come in:

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

Why on earth are reporters interviewing "PA representatives"? I don't know about the rest of the world but I am simply not interested in what these people - and I use the word very loosely - have to say. This is especially true after reading yesterday's post, "Learning from Sadism."

Secondly, there ought to be a simple plan in place to utterly destroy the cities of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Give the people some warning to get out, then raze the places. Let them wander.

And please, no whining about how innocent people are being unjustly punished...

How does the great Golda quote go, "We'll have peace when Arabs love their children more than they hate Israelis"? How about "Israel will live in peace when she protects Jews with the same vigor she protects Hassan Nasrallah and Arafat"? Maybe Sharon has a counter to keep track of his dead and when it hits 6,000,000 he'll do something about the ones causing the murders.

If that pissed you off, then good. You should have been pissed a long time ago.

All it takes to get the world opinion snowball rolling is one simple question asked of the PLO in public: "Do you condemn Hamas and Islamic Jihad and call on all people to turn them in for expulsion?" Plan B would be to convince your populace that not so many of them, mathematically speaking, are likely to be blown apart or ripped to shreds by supersonic nails, or have their kids gunned down in their bedrooms. I have no proof but strongly suspect Israel wouldn't put up with this number of deaths from improperly installed child safety seats. These aren't the kind of policy choices my people could get behind, it all comes down to choice.

"This is the only weapon we have. We don't get Apache helicopters and F-16s from America the way the Israelis do."

I often wonder how that argument would work on an American idiotarian if you exchanged the "suicide bomber" with "crashing jumbo jet airplanes".

#43: I second that motion. That suicide bombing was less then half a mile from were I was. A hangover would be a major step up for me compared to how I feel right now.

Mommydoc, you know in your heart that transfer is impossible. The Israelis can't push 3 million people out of their nation without becoming a pariah nation forever, and I'd lay odds that neither Israeli nor Talmudic law would allow such a thing to happen.

And you know it would never be done. But I feel what you feel, and I wish what you wish. Anguish tends to make you want vengeance.

Colt, it says a great deal for the Israelis that they are the only democracy in the middle east, and that transfer has not happened.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were thrown out of Kuwait after the Gulf War, and the Pals didn't kill any Kuwaitis. They just cheered Iraq on. The world was silent.

The eternal double standard towards the Jews.

More photos:

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

Mommydoc, these are mainly not Arabs. These are the Africans, Filipinos, Thai's, Rumanians and so on, who came to take the place of the Palestinian workers after letting them come into Israel freely to work just became too dangerous.

Whiner: I take back every nice thing I said about that schmuck on MSNBC.

You were right.

The illegal workers who live near the bus station are mainly foreigners (Thai, Romanian). It may be that only a minority of the fatalities of this attack will turn out to be Israelis. Not unlike Al Qaeda's attacks in Africa, which killed far more Africans than Americans or Israelis.

For these murderers, it is more important to succeed in killing than to kill the "right" people. That is because the real targets are the survivors. The terrorists are saying they will continue to kill until we, the survivors, pay them to stop. Fortunately, Bush and Sharon are not going to fall for this trap, and the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews now understand, to their sorrow, that no payment short of the elimination of a sovereign Jewish presence in Palestine will satisfy these killers.

Re Post 55 on illegal workers in Israel --

Actually, most of them are NOT Arabs.

They come from Africa, from East Asia, and from east and southeast Europe. Even some from South America. The old Tel Aviv bus station -- that I do not think functions as a bus station any more -- is a favorite gathering place for these foreign workers. A lot of them have no families here, and it gives them some companionship.

The Israelis have made a start on the one strategy (short of obliteration of the Palestinians) that might work.: bulldozing the houses of the bombers. I think that this is inadequate they need to bulldoze the 200 houses around the bomber's families and bulldoze the rebuilt family housese that are paid for by blood money. That way you get some interest from a few more people when your son or daughter startgs going jihadi.

"A bystander who only gave his first name, Tomer, told TV's Channel Two that he ran to help the wounded. 'I saw a man without a leg. I saw horrible things, people without legs, without arms. I saw fingers,' he said."

[Link: abcnews.go.com...]

#53 ploome

It sounds like the arabic name for Islamic Jihad

EVERY report has said something along the lines of

"despite a lack of attacks since November, Israeli army operations have increased"

and

"in the last six weeks, 45 Palestinians have died"

There are people BLEEDING as we speak, and the media is already moving in. I don't agree that all Muslims are savages. The media though? Disgusting. I feel physically sick.

Hard to understand the Israelis.
It's time to begin executing anybody involved in the bombings, after having extracted all possible information out of them using any existing means.
Their families should be targeted. Their homes could be blown up without being evacuated, without warning, and Israel could blame some non-exisiting crazy Jewish terrorist underground specially invented for the occasion. Then, on interviews, the Israeli government would swear to capture and punish the perpetrators.
SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE !!!!!!

J Post says the death toll has risen to 20.

[Link: www.jpost.com...]

arrow missiles are cool.
but i believe the ultimate "weapon" is Hashem.
weapon system that has worked, for thousands of years.
cannot be "captured".
operating instructions are
real simple.
a simple "test firing" of the power of klal yisroel keeping shabbos, kosher and really davenning to hashem.....
will have them all back in line, real fast.
but the more they see jews dying in clubs, disco's, especially on shabbos, the more they secretly love it.
THEY LOVE IT, so, simply stop it.
at the very least, try to.
keep the shabbos for Hashem!!!
thats theeee weapon system.....
if "they" really beleived in allah, they would attack in the thousands. they would be blowing themselves up literally everywhere.
simply they dont.
and they want jews to give up on the idea of Hashem.
then they can continue their existence as animals.
selfishly behaving without conscience.

The BBC International chose, as the first person to interview, the editor of AL Quds, who's blaming guess who.

"The Zionists deserve to be deprived of their children."

BBC.

The Yahoo slideshow is sickening. Picture of a Pal arguing with and IDF soldier? No story there, you might think. Oh contraire, its an oppurtunity to tell the world about other Israeli "crimes".

[Link: story.news.yahoo.com...]

More photos:

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

#77

It's always the opposite, right? Palis are being brainwashed to sacrifice their children so that the Jews will be deprived of theirs??

Just sick.

Time for us to start defending ourselves by going offensive. The arms of a mother defending her child doesn't stop bullets.

JG

#77 Colt

"The Zionists deserve to be deprived of their children."

Wasn't it just yesterday we had that long string about the way the palis abuse their own children into psychosis?

And yet they think the zionists don't deserve kids.

Maybe it's time to mass sterilise the palis, after all they seem to show up (and get treated) in Israeli hospitals often enough.

We wouldn't have to tell them about the 'little extra' snip that was included with their procedure.

Last word I have (ha'aretz) is that Islamic Jihad is taking "credit."

Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the attack, the West Bank correspondent for Lebanon's Al-Manar television station said.

We in the Internet Haganah are doing our level best to wipe Islamic Jihad off the face of the internet, but there's always a need for more people to do more.

See:
[Link: haganah.org.il...]
and
[Link: haganah.org.il...]
and
[Link: haganah.org.il...]
or just go straight to the database (newly revised, and guess who's site is at the tope of the list?)
[Link: www.weisburd.net...]

And remember, it's not about f*cking web sites. It's about the use of mass murder for political gain.

And it's not about "freedom of speech," it's about companies choosing to continue to take blood money for terrorist organizations.

Jpost reporting Hamas is also claiming to be responsible for the homicide bombing attack.

Since they are both so eager to be murdering innocents, maybe it is time for the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership to get a 2,000 lb "gift" from the IDF?

Deport The Fuckers

"Mission Statement: To humanely relocate [deport] all individuals/groups
inciting, supporing, funding, or harboring terrorists [fuckers]."

Let them all claim responsibility, then act in a way that they regret it.

The IDF should move some 155mms in to the settlements over looking the cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Put up big signs saying:

One Hundred Shells per Israeli wounded, Two Hundred Shells per Israeli killed. Have A Nice Day

Bush condemns attack in "strongest possible terms."

Who cares? Saudi money talks, and bullshit walks.

Imshin--I stand corrected; thank you.

Meryl--Difficult, but not impossible. And Israel is already basically a pariah nation, or hadn't you noticed? (sarcasm meant generally, not really directed at you...) UN reolutions, divestment campaigns, minimal world sympathy re: suicide bombings but plenty of victim-blaming, greater sympathy and understanding by the rest of the world towards the paleos' "root causes" than toward Israel's need to defend her existence and protect her people, Nobel prize awarded to Arafat, but threats of rescinding Peres' prize...Can't go on; I'm giving myself a headache.

OT--Interesting screed on Mother Theresa, brought up only because it demonstrates how upside-down the whole Nobel Prize thing has been for a long time.

Practically all her utterances (Hitchens' book gives abundant examples) are religious inanities, vacuous assertions, and ignorant observations. One can only be appalled by the lack of intellectual sophistication of her admirers who hold her in such high esteem and who seize upon her every asinine comment as a sign of her astuteness and philosophical depth. And this includes heads of state and the Nobel Prize committee members...

Strewn throughout Hitchens' book are many examples of the worthlessness of her advice and deliberations on the issues of the day: AIDS is a just retribution for improper sexual misconduct. The problems facing Calcutta are due to the fact that it is too distant from Jesus. "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."...

The little that is known about what goes on at the Missionaries of Charity is not encouraging. Hitchens dug up an article that appeared in the noted British medical journal, The Lancet (September, 1994). The article is by a physician who visited and inspected the Calcutta facility. He was quite disturbed by what he saw. He observed misdiagnoses and administration of inappropriate medications. He was particularly appalled that no strong analgesics were used to control intractable pain.

How bad things are in Mother Teresa's care of the sick, and how primitive her thinking is in other respects as well, can be seen in the observations Hitchens received from a host of former employees and volunteers in the Missionaries of Charity...The picture presented by this evidence reveals the sharp contrast between the received opinion about her work and the reality, and it relates some of the harm she does. It is not necessary to cite here all the reported negligence and malpractices, which range from repeatedly using the same injection needles without sterilizing them to a refusal to send to the hospital those in clear need of surgery.

The physician who wrote the critical article in The Lancet is an astute observer. After condemning the fact that there was no rational search for diagnosis and treatment in the Calcutta facility, he explains: "Such systematic approaches are alien to the ethos of the home. Mother Teresa prefers providence to planning: her rules are designed to prevent any drift toward materialism." Hitchens expounds on the same theme: "The point is not the honest relief of suffering but the promulgation of a cult based on death and suffering and subjection."

Mother Teresa is thoroughly saturated with a primitive fundamentalist religious worldview that sees pain, hardship, and suffering as ennobling experiences

Not just "primitive fundamentalist religious"--apparently a pervasive idiotarian worldview, in which paleostinian self-inflicted suffering trumps Israeli suffering at their hands simply because the paleos suffer more economically in their ignorance and hatred.

And doesn't this also remind you of Dhimmi Carter's Nobel Prize? The outcome doesn't matter nearly as much as the illusion of performance.

More photos:

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

geez mommydoc

already everyone posting on LGF is a de facto racist (just ask anil) but beating up on Mother Teresa!?!

your OT was indeed OT but it is always fun to read Hitchens

Colt,

There too pussywhipped or bushwhipped to do anything that manly.

J Post now says there are 60 injured.

Last year on MSNBC after a bombing in Jerusalem
they let a cameraman stream live video
of the attack site until theyactually showed
a man who was blown up and bleeding,
the moron reporter behind the desk kept
apologizing for showing that. It was
like " oh we are so sorry ( we actually showed the truth)
.....

When will Israel stand up for themselves and fight back?

john--OT but very relevant. Gets back to why the Israeli victims always get blamed--before the bodies are cold, before the injured even make it to the hospital, before they are even intubated in the field (which one of the pictures shows) while the paleos are never held accountable for their actions.

The problem is that Jews' suffering, is never enough for world sympathy. Hell, the world barely cared when Jews were loaded onto boxcars and gassed or starved nearly to death. The world barely cared when the camps were liberated and the truth came out.

Otherwise, why would they be interviewing paleo representatives instead of Israeli officials in response to paleo suicide bombings which kill Israeli citizens and visitors?

Another photo, and this one's worth well more than a thousand words:

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

#95

...Christ, that was awful.

I can't see a solution to this problem that doesn't involve expulsion of the Palestinians. As Meryl said above, it's impossible for Israel to do this on political and moral grounds but I rack my brain and honestly can't think of another solution.

One day something will happen so heinous that the aforementioned solution will occur, it's only a matter of time.

NC,

The wholesale slaughter of non-muslims civilians in public pedestrian places by muslims will only stop when those muslims are killed before given the opportunity to kill civilians in public pedestrian places.

J Post reports that the Israeli Security Cabinet has called an emergency session. Oh, and the number of injured is now being reported as over 100.

[Link: www.jpost.com...]

mommydoc

Is seems that the only 'truth' anymore is 'wrong=right'. Sometimes it's scary how prophetic Orwell was.

In this day and age the more backward and barbaric your behavior, the more leeway you are given to indulge in it.

Strangely, during world war II, it was the more advanced and barbaric you were, the more leeway.

I see one common factor. Jews are being murdered in both cases.

In the interests of context, here's a photo of an IDF soldier interacting with a Palestinian man this morning in Hebron.

[Link: www.reuters.com...]

So how is that fence coming along?

More photos from the bombing:

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

Bez,

Is that enough, to deport terrorists?

Is that a just punishment for all the almost 16,000 terrorists attacks in just over 2 years?

How about a full and persistent battle against the terrorists groups within the Israeli territories until, minimally, they can't be found for interviews by CNN or able to fax in responsibility for their civilain mass murders?

Have they tried the standard approach of fighting your enemies until victorious yet or only the giving in first approach?

Why hasn't Israel ever had a continuous and full persistent battle against the known terrorist groups that operate and thrive publicly within the Israeli boundaries?

I would do three thing to end terror within Israel proper.

1. Full martial law daily thorughout the entire Israel.

2. Officially Declare war against all terror groups, at least those within the Israeli boundaries, and combat them daily as if in a battlefield which it should look like due to all the Israeli air bombers that go in first. What's the point of war weapons if your not going to use them to protect your lives, its not all about deterence sometimes you actually have to fight.

3. Do not stop the war until all public displays of terrorsim is ended. In other words, no public rallies, do not allow certain terror garb, propanganda dispersal, books etc... Just like they do not allow Nazi proliferation within germany today. Then when teh terror group sare all compeltely crushed and there is no sign of their culture in the Israeli borders then you can either deport or assimilate the remaining arabs.

The mark of a poorly fought war is the ability of these terror groups within israeli borders to hold public displays of terrorism, whether that is rallies, infrastructure, campaigns, tv interviews with CNN, public relaitons via faxes and the like.

Do the Isralis not mind that?

Does the Israeli government want that public dispersal so they can lower the morale of themselves?

Just imagine a 30,000 pro-terrorists rally organized by established terrorists groups within America on a regualr basis with terrorism on a regular basis as well. I think they would be banned and destoryed asap, right?

Why hasn't Isreal ended the ability for terrorists groups to proliferate within their borders?

How many public terror groups are there now within Israrel 9, 10?

Semi-OT: Tim Blair pointed to an article in the anti-corporate publication Multinational Monitor called The 10 Worst Corporations of 2002; included in the list is Caterpillar, damned for making the bulldozers the IDF uses to destroy terrorists' homes. That probably wouldn't bother me quite as much (it's possible to be rationally opposed to the IDF tactic) if it weren't for the fact that the entry on Caterpillar is based around the Jenin Big Lie, starting off with some Amnesty International representative's early and inaccurate comments on Jenin camp. Check it out.

Note: I inadvertently posted this to an older thread earlier today...

#99 good answer.
Why is less 'moral' to transfer Jews out of Hevron, Alon Shvut or even a Neve Dekalim?

Anyway, since when is war ' moral ' ?

piglet, #92

That reminds me of a Mardi gras celebration in Seattle a few years back that turned into a riot with the camera crews showing the ruthless beatings by young black thugs of white party-goers. Their apologies flowed like wine until they finally cut the broadcast rather than show news in the making...so intent were they in maintaining their template of black-victim, white-oppressor. That is what is occurring here as well, the media has a template that they will protect at all costs, including the ruination of their reputation.

actually transfer is very moral.No further bloodshed on either side. But politically there will be problems.It wont happen any time soon.They are waiting for an attack on Iraq. I'm not holding my breath for a strong response.

NC: How long before the Pals take that Reuters picture and change the caption to "IDF soldiers run to kill a man having an epilectic seizure"?

101 - The fence you ask? Gevalt .. ! The construction has been temporarily halted. Why? Due to a labor dispute no less....

-----------------------
[Link: www.jpost.com...]
Construction of security fence halts due to a strike

Security fence construction grinds to a halt
The Jerusalem Post Internet Staff Jan. 5, 2003

Contractors halted work today on a security barricade going up between
Israel and the West Bank, due to a shortage of supplies that has
arisen because of a strike in the nation's quarries, Army Radio Reports.

The quarries haven't been operating since last week due to a labor
dispute over plans to fire about 500 employees nationwide. The quarry
workers have won the support of hundreds of truck drivers, and even
the country's largest construction firm, Solel Boneh, which have both
gone on strike or shut down operations since they are also adversely
affected by the dispute.

According to the radio, work on the security fence has also ground to
a halt due to a shortage of building materials. Work on paving the
Trans-Israel Highway is also stalled due to the quarry inactivity, the
radio says.

Palestinian Mouth of Sauron: "Today we welcome Gretta Duisenberg in our midst and show our appreciation for her show of solidarity with our noble people".

According to Galei Zahal (the Army Radio), the Al-Aqsa "Martyrs" Brigade has added itself to the list of groups claiming responsibility for the bombing. But the PA published a condemnation of the bombing... how could an associated group possibly be responsible? /sarcasm

Another Palestinian propagandist on MSNBC. Fortunately, Sharon-adviser Ra'anan Gissin is doing a pretty good job poking holes in it.

I remember in the 80s I think Hezbolla captured some Soviet citizens,so in return the KGB captured a Hezbolla leader cut off his balls put them in his mouth and I think "mailed" him back to Hezbolla in such condition and threatened that this will be the fate of all other captured Hezbolla prisoners. Surprise,surprise,the captives were released.These people dont understand any other methods.

Whiner - I saw the second one.. still sent off an e-mail because the twit interviewing him was a complete moron. Here's the last paragraph from my e-mail:

Even more disgusting is your insistent drive to aid and abet terrorism. By giving these propagandists airtime, you are effectively rewarding MURDER with the airtime on your network. Make no mistake about it - terrorists and their apologists see their brutal attacks on innocent civilians as a way to "earn" a soapbox on networks like yours. You should NEVER, EVER, EVER discuss the motivations of terrorists on your network directly after an attack - it is no better than the blood money sent by Iraq to the bombers' families - it's blood airtime. Report on the attack, report on the personal stories of the victims, but stop giving terrorists blood airtime.

Bring in the buses, load them up with everyone in Gaza and The West bank and dump these motherfuckers in Jordan.

Enough murder of innocent Jews, Israelis. Enough.

Do you hear Sharon? Fuck the world community of eunuchs!

Fuck em all!

90 wounded, 19 murdered!

This is war! Fucking war!

Let the demolitions & deportation begin now. Fuck the "fence". That's bullshit. And a waste of millions of dollars.

Send in the buses now!

The day the village of the perpetrator os razed flat we'll know the Israelis had had enough.
Until then, it's their fault.
I know, it's inhumuna, and a war-crime, but the alternative is this.

Compare and contrast:

"Because the Israelis insist on living in our midst (the disputed territories) we will kill and maim Israeli civilians within the undisputed borders at will."

"Because the Palestinian Arabs insist on killing and maiming our civilians within our undisputed borders, we will relocate them to a safe distance within the existing Palestinian Arab state, Jordan, while relocating Jewish settlers within undisputed Israeli borders, and declare the disputed territories a no-man's land/buffer zone.

"Anyone entering the zone will be considered an enemy combatant and killed on sighting. Furthermore, since they cannot be trusted, no Arabs without current Israeli citizenship will be permitted within Israel."

Quite frankly, the second sounds far more moral and humane to me. Anyone? Bueller?

Meryl writes:

Mommydoc, you know in your heart that transfer is impossible. The Israelis can't push 3 million people out of their nation without becoming a pariah nation forever, and I'd lay odds that neither Israeli nor Talmudic law would allow such a thing to happen.

In my heart, I agree with you, Meryl. I loathe the transfer option -- it's ugly, it's inherently unfair, and (let's not kid ourselves) it can't be carried out without more bloodshed.

But "impossible"? My inner cynic begs to differ. It's been done before, and others have gotten away with it, in circumstances granting much less justification.

Israel could get away with it. A nice, Orwellian PR campaign might help: something about finding a peaceful solution to end the bloodshed and stop the conflict, and Israel generously agreeing to compensate the Arabs for the small plot of land it will take. More to the point, the world is usually far more accepting of a fait accompli -- once the expulsion is over, the conflict fades off the TV screens. (A little none-too-subtle "encouragement" to Arab governments to absorb the refugees and stfu would also help here.) For some time after, Israel could even give "aid" to the displaced by way of their "leaders" and hosts -- we all know that aid will never reach the people, but nobody is going to give a damn, and the leadership will ride a nice gravy train for the remainder of their natural lives, by the end of which, the point will be moot. Who knows, with the right PR, some new Arafat could even get a Nobel Peace Prize out of the deal.

I doubt Israel would remain a pariah state, either, assuming they went with the "no more Mr. Nice Guy" approach. I doubt the United States would stop trade relations with Israel even in the wake of such an expulsion, and the craven Arabs and the even more craven Euroids can always be bullied into submission. Simply recapturing the Sinai and the Suez Canal would be enough to guarantee cooperation from Brussels to Riyadh, not to mention a nice and stable source of income for the Israeli treasury.

Please don't misunderstand me: I'm not advocating any of this. Not yet, anyways. But Israel has been "a good boy" for a long time now; at least since 1967 (when it was a pariah state). It is now a lot stronger, and has taken a lot of crap for a long time, and at some point, it will start dishing it out, the UN and "world opinion" be damned.

I just hope the Arabs -- in the Middle East and elsewhere -- figure this out before they see tanks and refugee columns at their borders.

Anguish tends to make you want vengeance.

Transfer isn't vengeance. Vengeance would be napalming the entire West Bank, with all its inhabitants, into ash -- and Israel could get away with this too, though the aftermath might destroy it from within. Transfer is the option of last resort before genocide.

Time for the Israelis to rediscover the maning of the word REVENGE. The Arabs don't understand the concepts of fairness or of justice and, in the absence of acts of Jewish revenge, they consider the Jews as a people that lacks honour. Thus, they don't even respect them. The only way to survive in such a neighbourhood is to prove that you have honour, and that means killing their people. You cannot try to play the Scandinavian in the Middle East. In Rome, act as the Romans, among Arabs, act as they do: bomb them to hell. Unless the Jews begin showing they can be worse than the Arabs, they'll be exterminated. Enough, then, of justice; it's time for revenge.

Unfortunately, the numbers are increasing. Filed at 2:49 p.m. ET (11:49am PST), NYT cites Reuters: "Two Palestinian suicide bombers killed at least 19 people and...At least 102 people were wounded." The usual scene is described: "The ground was coated with pieces of flesh together with nuts, bolts and ball bearings -- the lethal projectiles usually packed into bombs used by suicide militants in the uprising." Militants? Argh!!!

To all those advocating transfer: what makes you think it's going to work? How would it do anything except bring the Arab states into an active state of war with Israel and make things even worse than they are now?

Fatah is actually responsible for the attack(not Islamic Jihad as originally thought).Maybe arafat's brains should be splattered all over the wall of his room today.

ATTENTION FOLKS, CHARLES: According to Haaretz, FATAH has claimed responsibility for this attack.

all Arab states? Without support of the USSR? yeah right. Who will threaten "to rain missiles on Tel Aviv"? Who will replace their losses, free of charge? Who will force a cease fire in the Security Council? Oh and didnt Israel fight them all off even when caught totally by surprise?

JPost must count "injuries" differently: "20 people dead and wounded more than 50..." Looks like the animals are fighting over the glory of this "heroic vicotory"

"There were reports of conflicting claims of responsibility from the Islamic Jihad group and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement."

Army Radio reports that Hamas has also claimed responsibility for the twin suicide bombings tonight in Tel Aviv.

Previously Islamic Jihad issued a responsibility claim from Damascus and in Lebanon, media reports said.

Aren't these folks special?

How would it do anything except bring the Arab states into an active state of war with Israel and make things even worse than they are now?

I don't think the Arab states would lift a finger for the transferred Palestinians. The argument against transfer is principally a moral one and the associated economic sanctions, loss of American aid etc.

#121

Simple: once you send the Palestinians to the other side of the borders, they become other people's problem. The neighbours aren't peaceful because they're so decent, but because they have something to lose. But with the Palestinian fifth column inside Israel, the Jews also have something to lose. Getting rid of them, will make Israel less vulnerable, thus stronger and thus even more scary from the neighbours point of view. On the other hand, more Palestinians in the neighbouring countries will mean that they become weaker and, as it has already happened before, they will ask and wellcome Israel's help whenever they need to fight their own Palestinians. If transfer weren't such an excellent solution for Israel and bad for the Arabs it wouldn't be so intensely opposed, would it? Or do you actually think that all actors, from the Arab states, to the EU to the State Department are motivated by goodwill and morals?

Haggai asks an interesting question:

To all those advocating transfer: what makes you think it's going to work?

Just to be clear, I am not advocating transfer, but I think I can answer this.

First, you'd have to define "work." If by "work" you mean "stop Arab terrorism in Israel," I think the answer is pretty straightforward: forcibly expelling the Arabs will deprive them of a porous border to access Israeli territory, and a convenient base for staging attacks. Naturally, this assumes at least some cooperation from the accepting country, but that would be (cough) arranged. Transfer also would deprive the Arabs of the hope of one day regaining the part of Palestine that they lost -- they will have lost all of Palestine. Transfer, once accomplished, will remove a point of contention between Arabs and Israelis, and make the Arab complaints moot. ("It's done. You lost. Now fuck off.") Transfer will remove the strategic difficulty of guarding a border that has enemies on both sides. Finally, transfer would demonstrate that Israel is not to be dicked around with, which is important in global affairs in general, and in dealing with Arab dictators in particular.

That's not to say that terrorism will stop entirely. I'm guessing that Hizbollah and Hamas will go after Israeli interests outside Israel itself more aggressively -- just as they did with the Kenya bombing, or with the attempted PLO assassination of an Israeli ambassador that precipitated the invasion of Lebanon. But that's another problem, for another day.

How would it do anything except bring the Arab states into an active state of war with Israel and make things even worse than they are now?

Just what is it that you think keeps the Arab states from going into an active state of war with Israel right now? Surely you don't think it's self-restraint, or the hope of peaceful resolution? Arabs cannot take on Israel, even all put together -- they tried multiple times before, and lost, even though they were generously supplied with weapons and training by the Soviets. Israel is now stronger and nuclear; Arabs are weak and unsupported; they can't harm Israel no matter how much they want to, and survive as nations only because the Israelis choose to let them. Israel's problems are numerous, but direct antagonism of its neighbors is of only passing importance.

Enough!
Genug!
Basta!

Scrape that fungal growth Arafat off the West Bank and send him to his master in Baghdad. Then the U.S. can get two for one.

I've long stated that given the poisoned fruit palestinian culture is, there is no way to coexist with it.

As the time it would take to reconstruct pal culture from the ground up would necessarily entail too many dead israelis (one is too many), transfer is the most humane solution.

I'd wager it would be a hell of a lot more acceptable to the rest of the world than the ratcheting up of measures such as home demolition into 'town demolition'.

Do it, get it over with. Jordan IS palestine, for all intents and purposes, if not today, than when the current 'king' is off the scene.

Humane. Legal. Justified. The most practical of any possible solution, given the hardwired psychopathology of arab and especially palestinian society.

E. Nough, nelson, alexbmn--you have all made eloquent arguments for why Israel needs to adopt transfer--before the Islamists get nuclear capability. Which they eventually will.

Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and Hamas are all claiming this. Fuck all of them. I'm sick to my soul. I can't even find words right now.

Well, folks, I am advocating transfer, and you can call me any names you like - I don't give a f***.

The polls show that the majority of these "people" favor continuing the stupidfada. The majority support suicide bombings. The majority support Arafat. The majority consider these killers "martyrs." It's time for them to pay the price for their bloodlust. It's time to end the open season on Jews.

It's time to clean out this cesspool. I don't give a s*** where they go, as long as they go. Let them be the Arabs' problem, and we'll see what big humanitarians their "brothers" are. I don't think that the Arabs will go to war to defend the Palestinians. If the Kuwaitis and Jordanians can kick them out, then so can Israel.

Annex the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan. Israel has paid the price for this land many times over in blood.

Haggai, what you see now is the Arab states waging war on the Israelis through the PLO. Forcing them to put their own asses on the line or STFU would be a major victory. Instead today we have murder cloaked in "sympathy, support and solidarity" with the "oppressed, massacred war-crime victims."

A wartime leader is always a target. After each attack take out the leader of the organization that perpetrated it and anyone that is in the way. Pretty soon no one will lead and allow attacks on Israel. All that hatred and hostility has to go somewhere. Uh huh, violent, savage and merciless infighting amongst the "Palestinians." Even Europe and Canada will have to see the true face of what they have created. And terrorists will murder each other, always a delightful thing.

Or you could maybe get around to eventually building a fence when it suits the interests of labor unions (hope the public turns on those bastards). Meanwhile just pray it is some faceless (because you don't know him) guy that becomes a faceless (because of blast and shrapnel) corpse and not you or anyone you know.

By the way, when I started posting about the transfer option more than a year ago, there were esssentially no people even willing to discuss it here, and yet after every egregious arab/pal atrocity, more than a few posters would vent with genocidal or mass killing revenge scnario suggestions or wishes.

Here we are, a year later, and the topic is now freqently promoted and debated, not on moral terms as much as on practical considerations.

If this keeps up, a tear from now we'll be debating exactly the best methods to use to effect the transfer, or, hopefully, be debating the pros and cons of methods the Israelis are actively using to effect it.

The land cannot support a viable pal state, even if they were dutch, istead of islamic, poorly educated, and sociologicaly and psychologicaly warped palestinians who have hardwired their children to a blood drenched way of life.

Amy--I agree with you. Model4--here and elsewhere today, you are just absolutely the voice of reason.

E. Nough 128: You make some good points about the Arab states going to war or not, but if Israel tried a forced program of transfer, I really think those regimes would see that as a "red-line" and go to war. I'm not saying that Israel should be afraid of losing such a war, just that the probability of it happening affects the argument about whether transfer would "work" in the sense of Israel having to do less fighting for its survival.
Also, I really don't think your scenario wherein the Arab states would acquiesce in depriving the Palestinians of a base for launching terror attacks would arise. One has to assume that they would respond to transfer by allowing the attacks to continue. Israel can defeat all the Arab states if they try to invade, but it can't get peace by toppling neighboring regimes. It failed to do so in Lebanon, and would fail even worse if it tried that with all its neighbors at once.

Maine's Michael--sometimes what is practical is the most moral thing to do. It's also hard to remain moral and still alive in the face of absolute immorality and depravited blood lust.

Zulubaby--feel better. Maybe we can have a visit soon.

That should have read 'a year from now' but 'a tear from know' (as in crying), works well too.

Amy,

Have you really come over to the 'dark side'?

You know, something just dawned on me. In the true spirit of our leftist friends, we shouldn't be discussing "transfer" as a possible solution to Israel's woes. We should be talking about "reunification" as a definite solution to the "Palestinian's".

Ohhhhh yeah. Welcome home to Egypt. Welcome home to Jordan.

Arghh! "depravited" is what you get when you try to change "depravity" to "depraved bloodlust" without previewing.

Model4--It's all in the presentation. I truly think you're on to something big ;-D

Reunification now. Faster, please.

Haggai writes: How would it do anything except bring the Arab states into an active state of war with Israel and make things even worse than they are now?

Sadly Haggai an all out war with the Arab states is necessary to finally expose the lie that this is an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Arab states except Egypt and Jordan have remained in a perpetual state of war with Israel since 1948, they have merely changed their tactics.

Realizing a conventional war with Israel is doomed to yet another failure they are using their pawns, the Palestinian Arabs to perpetrate a war of attrition. This successful war has divided Israel and created outward emnity toward Israel throughout the civilized world. A direct conflict with the Arab states would expose their true aims while giving Israel more freedom to get the true enemy from afar, and expel the enemy within.

I agree with E. Nough in general that Israel must act rather than react and over time, they will be in no worse a political position and certainly in a better security situation. That being said, the short term pain of boycotts and diplomatic isolation will indeed be a bitter pill to swallow and certainly will not seem to be the proper choice in the short term.

Israel will lose support in the US and will no doubt suffer security council action (The US is the real key to this). If the US remains supportive of Israel, such a move will be worth it. There are no countries that are willing to engage in an attack on Israel and take credit for it. E. Nough states that Europe can be beaten into submission which to an extent is true, but Europe would take its markets down with its pride and deprive Israel from its largest trading partner.

I have advocated before that an Israeli leader needs to take the step to be Israel's Ajax. Israel will be able to weather the criticim, scorn and exile as it always has. Public support in the US is strong and thus limits what the administration would do to harm Israel (I also think that Bush secretly supports Israel's right to defend itself and action may force this support to boil to the surface).

Victor Davis Hanson tapped Sharon for this job and Sharon may yet have some tricks up his sleeve but so far he has seemed more like Peres than Ajax.

Hanson writes:

Without the dash of a youthful, handsome Achilles or the divine dispensation of a crafty Odysseus, Ajax battered down the Trojans — fighting out of a sense of duty, personal honor, and perhaps a sheer love of combat. . . . the classical tragic hero, the man who does society's dirty work, but receives no accolades for his sacrifice — and as often as not ends up as publicly shunned as he is privately admired from a safe distance.

As I wrote in the thread linked above: the normally presciant Hanson appears to have gotten this one wrong. Arik has proven more adept at wading the political minefields than he has at doing Israel's dirty work. If only Sharon could live up to that role, Israel would be in a much better place. When Mitzna (Labor #1 who favors unilateral withdrawal and negotiations with Arafat) is offered the Defense portfolio things are going to get worse in a hurry. Mitzna will make Colin Powell look like a hawkish footsoldier by comparison.

mommydoc

All Arab states helped poisoning the Palestinians' soul, but up to know it's mainly the Jews who had to swallow that. Transfer would give them all a taste of their own poison, to begin with.
If the Europeans protest, well, they can turn over to the Palestinains the places in their own continent vacated by the Jews: they could take in, say, 6 million Palestinians, or they could give them Belgium, for instance, or Austria: I couldn't care less.

Havent read the entire thread but i was watching gox news as it happened, and the commentator actually refered to hamas, fatah and islamic jihad as terrorist groups. Without quotation marks. while on CNN they werent even talking about it

Deporting terrorists is way too nice a gesture to them.

There needs to be a concerted war effort, day and night, nationally for all Israelis to root out and kill all forms of terrorism within their borders.

The fact that terrorism springs from within their own borders by groups that are public enough to hold TV interviews is a bad mark on the IDF and the Israeli Government no one else.

The only way to have a future for Israel is to root out all terror groups completely that thrive within Israeli borders.

Don't let up until its done!

Deportation can come later, first kill and destroy all terrorists groups that have infrastructure in your borders.

One of the things I've read about but cannot remember where was that the liberation of Iraq and the consequent reconstruction of the country would mean hundreds of thousands of new jobs and, thus, a kind of disguised transfer of Palestinians. Anybody wants to comment on this?

Maine's Michael.

Damn straight.

I've advocated what I call the completion of the exchange of populations which started in 1948. Almost a million Jews came to Israel as the result of persecution and expulsion, and 600,000+ Arabs left Israel (some on the advice of their Arab "liberators" and some via expulsion to prevent their becoming a fifth column at the Israelis' backs).

I've said before that Israel should dismantle the settlements and the Israeli Arabs should leave Israel to complete this transfer.

What's new is that I now no longer accept the inevitability of a Palestinian state on Israel's border. In fact, now I believe that any such state, in any incarnation whatsoever, would be a complete disaster in that it would be the headquarters for every Jew-hating terrorist group on the face of the planet. Arafat's first act as head of such a state would probably be to invite bin Laden for a visit and roll out the red carpet for him.

There is no possibility of peace with these monsters. There is no possibility of coexistence with these monsters.
These monsters cannot be contained effectively.
One more Jewish death is too many.
The only way to stop this is to put these monsters far enough away from Israel that they cannot get there. Let them snarl and snap at one another like the rabid dogs they are.

What do you think the U.S. would do if it had suicide bombers coming into the country from Mexico and/or Canada and blowing up U.S. citizens in Buffalo, Tacoma and San Antonio?

Jews are an endangered minority in the world - we are justified in doing whatever it takes to save our lives.

J. Lichty: Don't kid yourself, the US would abandon Israel in a heartbeat if Israel tried to transfer all the Palestinians out of the territories. So would American Jews, among whom advocates of transfer are still a distinct minority (although maybe not on this thread). Aid cut-off would be immediate, and a US-led Kosovo-style NATO bombing campaign might not be far behind if Israel persisted with any real attempt at transfer.

Haggai,

I suggest that you not presume to speak for American Jews. The vast majority of American Jews are Zionists and suppport Israel. No way are we going to abandon Israel. Ever.

Amy,

Not only American Jews.. Americans as a whole, of all religions Support Israel and want to kill every last fucking arab terrorist they can manage.

LET THE BOMBS FALL!

BEGIN THE AIR CAMPAIGN TO DESTORY ARAB TERRORISM

IMO, those who support a "Palestinian" state have already abandoned Israel.

Amy--once again, right on all points. You relate my own philosophical evolution on this matter. If transfer doesn't occur soon, outright annhilation will become necessary within 10 years. Reunification is the most humane, and therefore the most moral, option at this point.

NC,

Great job with the postings. I didn't know this had happened until my friend called me about an hour or so ago. I was extremely agitated, trying to get the news and all that, so your posts were perfect. Thanks.

Amy: I support Israel too, but I wouldn't if it adopted transfer as its policy. It's accurate to say that most American Jews are against transfer, as are most Israeli Jews. What would happen if an Israeli government adopted transfer as its policy? I think it would be toppled in Israel and would lose support from almost everyone in America, including from most American Jews. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's not un-Zionist to say so. Opposing this or that Israeli policy, and we're talking about one that doesn't even have a realistic chance of being implemented, is not necessarily equivalent to abandoning Israel.

Most people think that the occupation of Iraq will change the whole picture: I hope they're right. But, unless those changes are real deep, another round of open Arab-Israeli war is practically inevitable, and the sooner it takes place, the better. Israel will have to take serious action against heavily missile-armed Hizbollah in Southern Lebanon and against its sponsor, Syria. It will also have to stop Iran's nuclear program. And there is Al Qaeda all over the place, backed by the Saudis, the Emirates and many others.
The EU keeps trade with Israel as a way of chaining it down. Israel will have to find another trading partner, once it is paying for the privilege of good economic treatment by the Europeans with its own citizens' blood.
On the other hand, Israel already is and has been for most of the time a pariah state, but that is an expression that has some meaning only in Western Europe and in the corridors of international institutions and the importance of this all is rather declining, isn't it? China, India the US and Russia don't treat Israel as a Pariah, so who cares about what the Greens in Denmark or the Socialists in Luxembourg think? If one ignores them, they disappear.
Still, we cannot forget that one of the guiltiest parties for what's happening right now was the first Bush administration that forced Oslo down Israel's throat. In moral terms, the second Bush administration should be compensating for that mistake instead of allowing the State Department to lecture Israel.

Haggai I am not kidding myself. I did acknowledge the possibility of the administration abandoning Israel, but being constrained by US popular opinion.

Do you really think the US would lead a UN charge against Israel? No other country but the US gives the UN any teeth, and I do not think the US wcould ever start bombing Israel.

Is Britain going to attack Israel, how about France and Germany? No they sit there in Europe and whine about those awful Jews, but they would not be willing to pay the death toll for attacking a country with nukes facing a threat to its existence. We will not attack an evil country like North Korea because they have nukes, do you really think that there will be a military cost for the plan?

I acknowledged that the political price would be high and you are correct it may mean the end to aid from the US. It would most definitely cause boycott after boycott in Europe, Canada and San Francisco. But Israel has been there before. Prior to 1972 it recieved no US aid and survived attack after attack on its very existence.

China would trade with Israel, India would trade with Israel and eventually Israel would return to its current lowly status as the Jew among nations.

Transfer is certainly a difficult plan in its finality and its image and I do not think that Israel's citizenry would have the stomach for it, but it would not be causus belli for any one but the Arabs, who come to think of it have used Israel's existence as causus belli for the last 55 years.

#149

Bomb Israel? No thanks. Remember all those Patriots and F-15s we keep giving them? Unlike the Arabs, they actually know how to use their toys. We'd win, but we'd lose a lot of guys. As for NATO, as much as the French and Germans would probably like to kill some (more) Jews, the IDF would spank them. It would be comical to watch them decimate the Non-US NATO squadrons.

Unfortunately, Israel will never deport the Palis, because they are a true democracy, and democracies don't do that kind of thing. Now, let Arafat eat a MK-84, that sounds like a plan. If we want to stop this bs, we must hold the leaders who order it personally responsible, and kill them with extreme prejudice. Death to Arafat, Saddam. the House of Saud, Assad, all those losers!

Haggai,

Once again, I think you're dead wrong when you say that Israel would lose the support of the American Jewish community. Israel is fighting for her life now - her economy is in shambles, and her people are suffering from extreme psychological stress. The damage being done to her children by this constant fear is beyond our comprehension.

You're also dead wrong to say that an Israeli government that took such action would be toppled. I think that the majority of Israelis would feel nothing but relief.

And if you were to stop supporting Israel if she adopted such a policy, you'd show yourself to be nothing but a fair-weather friend. Israel doesn't need "friends" like you who want to continue to tie her hands behind her back while her people continue to be slaughtered. If you'd been around during WWII, you probably would have condemned the Warsaw uprising, too - "If Jews start killing, then they're no better than the Nazis." Yeah, right.

The only difference between what happened to the Jews under Nazism and what's happening now is that the Jews have the means to defend themselves this time and to take the war to their enemies. The fact that the world is unhappy to see Jews defending themselves speaks volumes to me.

What if transfer is the only way for Israel to stop the carnage? Is everybody in the world allowed to defend themselves except for Jews? F*** that!

Haggai,

having an israeli mother, who is visiting Israel at this moment, and a couple dozen (at least) Israeli relatives, I can tell you that that Israelis are against transfer not becuase they don;t think it wil work, but because they think it is IMPRACTICAL. Loss of US support, the nuts and bolts of doing it, the extent to which the arabs are now interdigitated not only in borders, but in day to day existence, with Israelis.

If asked if they believe it would solve or ammeliorate the problem, the answer is an unequivocal "YES".

So, transfer or 'reunification' (I REALLY like that!) are possible, the answer is yes, of push comes to shove, and it comes down to an 'us or them' situation.

They are not there yet, but they are getting there, closer this year than last.

korndog,

WRONG!

Democracies deport people all the time.

Read your local American newspapers and you will see America has deported several thousand arabs since 9.11

What makes you think deporting bad people from your country is non-democratic?

Have you been brainwashed by the PC police of the neo-facists?

korndog,

For example, in New York they are deporting a 79 year old former nazi guard because he didn't tell anyone he was a former nazi guard, and as Americans we generally don't take to kindly to those old timer former nazi guards, so he is getting deported i.e. shoved out of our country and back to his country of origin or anyone that wants old former nazi guards which is not America.

Where did you get this silly idea that deporting many people from a democracy won't ever happen?

Who told you this or what makes you think this, as a PSI and HIS major it is very interesting to me to see someone say that.

Lichty,

Brillaint analysis. Right on point (as always).

You've definitely come over to the 'dark side' these last several months.

Maine's I have always supported transfer as the most humane long term solution(search the site), but I have always been quick to acknowledge the down side as well.

From Arutz Sheva:

Bombs Contained 10-15kg of Explosive Materials
(IsraelNN.com)

Police are indicating the two bombs carried by the Islamic Jihad bombers tonight in southern Tel Aviv were extremely powerful, containing between 10-15 kilograms (22-33 lbs) of explosive materials. This is obvious by the widespread damage to the areas of the explosions, despite the fact the bombs were detonated outside in non-contained areas.

For comparison purposes, the bomb in the Park Hotel in Netanya on March 27, 2002 that murdered 29 and wounded over 130 contained less the 10 kilograms of explosives. The same is true with the bomb used in the June 1, 2002 attack in Tel Aviv's Dolphinarium Discothèque that claimed 21 lives and left over 120 wounded.

In addition to the large quantity of explosives, the bombs contained a lot of metallic bolts, nuts, and nails to maximize the carnage. Because of the size and weight of the bombs used tonight, police believe the bombers were not wearing bomb belts or vests but were carrying bags with the large devices in them.

Everyone remember that the "MS" in MSNBC stands for. Maybe someone needs to ask Bill Gates his take on the sort of slanted propaganda his company presents as "news".

Kosovo-style NATO bombing campaign if the Israelis transferred out the Arabs of the WB? You mean like the one they conducted against Kuwait after they transferred their Palestinians ?

Forgetting the obvious hypocrisy behind such a thing, it would never happen for the reasons korndog has laid out- it would be far too costly. We are basically deterred by North Korea and Israel is a much tougher nut to crack, militarily, than North Korea.

The best way to end terrorism is to end terrorists.

The root cause of terrorism is its success.

A fight to the end is what is needed for the futures of us all.

The sooner the better the later the worse.

Each day this evil grows stronger.

Each day it is not fought or confronted.

Each day is is assuaged and apologized, or even 'understood.'

Each day it is supported this vicious evilness spreads further throughout every region of earth.

The countries in the southern hemisphere on earth are already swallowed whole by this evil cancer.

While the selfish are concerned with their own flesh and throw others to the wolves....

The evil that threatens us all grows even stronger.

Those who cannot make the connection between the two
as if the threat to one is their threat and their threat alone are as blind to thier own demise as their future will be.

They lack many things besides basic logical sense
also political science understanding,
war history, religious minority persecution history,
and general history to think the threat against one is their threat and their threat alone.

Throwing the threatened to the wolves will not spare your life and definetely not your soul, if you have one that is.

Confronting this evil beast head on is the only way to save the future for all people of goodwill.

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetuate it." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sorry, I suppose I should have been more specific. Democracies might deport individuals, but they do not deport entire groups of people. Those thousands of Arabs we have deported since 9/11, are they US citizens? I think not. There is a difference between enforcing immigration laws and the wholesale expulsion of a people.

We deport individuals after due process (ie former Nazis, more than just that one in NY). When was the last time a true democracy has done mass deportations? I suppose you could claim what happened to the American Indians, in the 1800s. Can you think of a more recent occurence?

I personally am not opposed to deporting them, I just doubt a democracy can muster the political will to do so.

Amy--Uh, yeah, my opposition to transfer is clearly the equivalent of opposing the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Yitzhak Rabin didn't support transfer, and neither does Ariel Sharon. Do you conclude from that that they condemned the Warsaw ghetto uprising?

Maine's--I have lots of Israeli relatives as well, and I simply don't agree with you. I think most Israelis oppose transfer both because they think it's immoral and because they don't think it would solve the problem. Not much more either of us can say, I guess, we just have different opinions on how people in Israel see things.

J Lichty--I don't agree. If Israel adopted a policy of transfer tomorrow, I think American public opinion would turn on Israel in a heartbeat. We seem to be in agreement that the administration would cut off aid, but I don't think it would end there. Israel would be seen as basically the equivalent of Serbia under Milosevic, and if Israel continued attempting to enforce transfer even after a total economic boycott by the rest of the world, I definitely think the US would lead a NATO bombing campaign to stop it. Of course neither of us can prove our scenarios, but that's what I think would happen.

Haggai,

So, basically your saying Jews are more concerened with how others percieve them than their own well being?

Isn't that what the Jewish psychology has always been in history?

Well, if that is the truth, that is pretty unfortunate and a bleak outlook you must all have.

That's all pretty sad, too bad being pathetic doesn't save lives.

Israel needs to invest in some big billboards.

IF WE ARE NUKED, WE WILL HIT YOU BEFORE WE RETALIATE

and

IF YOU ARE A POTENTIAL TERRORIST, AN ISRAELI UNDERGROUND GROUP WILL KILL YOUR FAMILY AFTER YOU ATTACK

and

FOR EVERY KILLED ISRAELI, WE WILL FLATTEN A SQUARE MILE OF EACH OF YOUR CITIES WITH 155MMS

and

FOR EVERY TEN ISRAELIS KILLED, WE WILL INVEST TEN MILLION IN NEW SETTLEMENTS

and

YOU THINK YOU CAN SCARE US? DO YOU LIKE THE SMELL OF NAPALM?

and

THINK PICKING UP A GUN IS A GOOD IDEA? WELL, THE SNIPER LOOKING AT YOU FROM 1.5KM AWAY DISAGREES

Put up these signs, put it on TV and on PA radio. Then all Israel needs is the balls to back it up.

Problem solved.

(I CAN think rationally, but forgive a little blind anger.)

Oh God -- to the bombing, to the news 'commentary', to all of it. No attacks since November? I assume the old man shot to death and set on fire, and the slaughter in Otniel and the car bomb in Jerusalem didn't really happen, then? And wasn't the murder of the mom and her two little boys in a kibbutz within Israel proper?

I'd like to know the names and 'circumstances' of the 45 palistinian dead: there are at least 3 kids in there, plus the highschool student, all caught in the crossfire. The rest? I'd really, really like to know about the rest: more 'totally innocent civilians', I'm sure.

This looks like an attack on Chinatown to me: there's a bloody sandwich board in one of the photos that has Chinese lettering. I assume this was deliberate, that the bastards are targeting the Vietnamese, Chinese, Phillipino and Thai workers, probably attempting to make Israel a less tempting workplace. I'm assuming that it is a better, more equitable, place to be a 'guest worker' than Saudi Arabia or Yemen.

As far as the A-holes are concerned, of course, these people are just one more clay pigeon in the shooting gallery.

Lord comfort those who mourn and have suffered loss.

Interesting comments all. Gut reaction time again. I've seen stats showing 2000+ dead Arabs living in Palestine (I'm making a conscious effort to say it that way) and 700+ dead Israelis. That ratio is not nearly high enough. Should be more like 10 or 20:1. Maybe THEN those murderous b****rds might pay attention. And none of the stupid targeted attacks. Jenin masacre? Make it a reality!!

(I told you - this is GUT reaction - I need to vent!)

This is freakin' WAR. Total war! When will the rest of the world understand that? I know, I know - stupid question. If they did then transfer would be less onerous and would certainly be no reason for making Israel a pariah state. Another problem is the cowardly, yellow terrorist pukes errrummm Pali soldiers hide amongst the civilians similar to what the VC did. Yet there still hasn't been a Mai Lay, not even Jenin.

Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and Hamas are all claiming this.

The only ones missing are al-Qaida. And that gives me the chills. I do NOT want to see American ground troops in Israel. I have no problem with the U.S. furnishing F-16's and the rest. I absolutely hate the thought of seeing our supposed zest for chasing terrorists draw us into this conflict directly.

#134 Model4

what you see now is the Arab states waging war on the Israelis through the PLO. Forcing them to put their own asses on the line or STFU would be a major victory. Instead today we have murder cloaked in "sympathy, support and solidarity" with the "oppressed, massacred war-crime victims."

Oh so very correct! The Islamist countries learned well from our own brush wars with the Soviet Union in places like Viet Nam and Central America. Only problem with that is the Israeils have no proxy to fight for them like the Arabs (or is it Islamists?) do.

Unfortunately I think it is inevitable that somewhere down the line the U.S. will "officially" abandon Israel. No, not American Jews or those others of the sort who post here and elsewhere. But at some point, in the not too distant future I think, the positional stance of the U.S. government will turn.

Not once in any of these posts advocating transfer has anyone said WHERE all these Pals are going to go.

Jordan won't take them, and Jordan has the best relations with Israel of any Arab country and is the Arab country trying the hardest to modernize. Israel and Jordan cooperate on many border issues including keeping Pal terrorists out of Jordan. Israel is not going to jeopardize that relationship. Sure they "belong" in Jordan - theoretically. But it ain't going to happen, because Jordan's rulers aren't stupid.

Who else is going to take them? If the other Arab states won't even let them become citizens, and keep them in refugee camps, and deport them, why do you think they will take them in?

If they don't go to arab states, where will they go? If you can't deal with this problem realistically, then all talk of transfer is just venting.

The other problem with transfer is cost and infrastructure. How do you remove 3 million people from their homes and transport them somewhere else, especially when they don't want to go? It took Hitler several years, a large part of his army and raillines, to move the same number of Jews to camps. (And don't think the comparison won't be made.) Again, if you have no practical suggestions for how to accomplish this, it's just venting.

The wall is a less complicated solution, yet so far they have only built a mile of wall and it has cost several million.

If you can't answer these questions, then don't take up thread space with yet one more "let's transfer the bastards!" party.

PS The italics were just supposed to be around "3 million people". Preview, Judith, preview.....

Haggai,

Yeah, Rabin was the architect of Oslo, so the less said about that the better, hmmm? Or are you saying that Oslo was a good idea?

Sharon wants to earn brownie points from the U.S. by exercising restraint and saying that he supports a Palestinian state. However, if things get any worse (and it's hard to see how they could, frankly), I think he'd change his position. Sharon has always made it crystal clear that he'll do what he believes is in Israel's interest.

I don't think that the Israelis consider removal of the Palestinians "immoral." What's immoral is the religion of death and its practitioners. Arafat condemns these bombings only because he's afraid that he's going to get the heave-ho. If only!!

The equivalent of Serbia under Milosevic??? That's simply absurd and a slander of the Israelis. The Serbs were the aggressors, attacking Bosnia/Herzegovina and the Kosovars in the name of a "Greater Serbia." Nobody was blowing up Serbs in the streets. No one was talking about destroying Serbia or the Serbs. Milosevic and his thugs decided to commit genocide, not deportations. The Serbs proceeded to rape Muslim women and murder Muslim men and put them in mass graves. Your analogy is completely irresponsible.

Gi Joe: please don't generalize from Haggai's fearful views that the views of Jews as a whole are similar. He is just one guy.

Yehudit,

Who cares about deporting terrorist death culture, what we Americans don't get is why you aren't willing to fight them head on and make them reponsible for what they openly claim and punish them in biblical proportions.

Being self-conscious so as to not protect your own country will just make your country look weaker and more vulnerable to all your enemies throughout the entire planet.

I do not think you have the luxury to allow 35 years of uninterrupted terrorism go on for too much longer.

You have a small land and a small people. Why don't you fight them and stop looking for the easy way out such as deportation?

Deportation just moves your problem, why not solve it for once?

Fight the terrorists and win, you'll know you won when they can't be interviewd on TV so easily.

Quiet Storm,

I know and I am not.

I am just telling him that sort of impression being given off won't save him or his from anyone.

Colt,

We in the USA do this already even before we start fighting.

It is known as PsyOps and works pretty damn well.

I guess I would be a bit surprised to learn that the IDF didn't employ similar PsyOps tactis in the forms of leaflets or the like, the US Army has already started that in Iraq.

Warning Iraqis they will held responsible for anything they do with pictures of skeletons and burning fire.

Yehudit -

I said that I didn't care where they went, and I don't, as long as they can't get into Israel anymore. Let their brother Muslims stand naked before the world when they refuse to take them in. So much for Islamic solidarity from these hypocritical bastards.

And please note that I'm talking about what I think should happen, not what I think will happen.

If the Israelis were smart, they'd bulldoze all of the buildings within several miles of the Green Line, level it and turn it into a DMZ. Fly patrols over the area, put up electrified fences with guard towers, and shoot or bomb any persons or vehicles seen moving within the zone. No exceptions.

#181

I've read about how it was used in Vietnam. Thanks for the info.

Yehudit (#175):

Well, maybe we are venting. But what do you think would be the solution here (I'm genuinely curious)?

Yehudit,

the King of Jordan's Kingdom IS Palestine (well, 3/4 of it).

With or without his permission, that is where they belong. even if it's shoved down his half British throat.

Yehudit--I don't particularly care where they go, as long as it's not the US (or Canada.) I see it this way: Notice to leave with a three month expiration, and threat of bombardment and death if they stick around. It's up to them to find a place to take them.

And if Jordan, which is for all practical purposes the Arab Palestinian state, carved as it is our of 78% of the Palestinian Mandate (mandated for a Jewish homeland, BTW, lest we forget) won't take them (as I expect they won't--look what happened the last time they let Arafat in), it will speak volumes when they let them be killed.

They made their own bed. I no longer have tears for anyone but ther victims.

"Not once in any of these posts advocating transfer has anyone said WHERE all these Pals are going to go."

They can go to Hell.

Transfer out of Israel would take an incredible amount of resolve the Israelis just don't have right now. If no Arab nations would take them, Israel might have to invade Lebanon to have somewhere to dump them.

But transfer out of the West Bank and into Gaza is more feasible. They can be crammed into the worthless Gaza strip, and because that's all internal Israeli territory, nobody else can stop them. Israel doesn't need permission from Jordan or Lebanon.

Every time there is another terrorist murder, Israel should pick up a dozen Palis from the West Bank and deport them to Gaza. It should avoid big cities, but instead take the people from rural communities (that way, Israel gets a lot more land per person deported, and severs Palestinian links to the land). When a full village is removed, it could be replaced with an Israeli settlement. The success of this would prove to the Palestinians they have no choice but to work with the Israelis.

Death toll up to 23 - all Israeli citizens.

Michael Levy (#187)

"Not once in any of these posts advocating transfer has anyone said WHERE all these Pals are going to go."

They can go to Hell.

Beautiful.

There are no innocent Palestinians anymore. Why? Because they celebrate each and every dead Pal as a martyr. A martyr is a murderer and an unlawful combatant. Arafat himself declared that they were going to Jerusalem, martyrs by the million. These declarations make of every Pal a legitimate target.

And there is no use discussing what the world and the Europeans (who live outside of it) will think. One thing I was pretty sure of on 911 was that there'd be noone who'd dare defend such a barbarity. Well, how long did it take for Chomsky, Sontag and the Euros to begin justifying the unjustifyable?

Recently, even a Danish minister condemned the killing of those Al Qaeda b..tards in Yemen. According to people like these, the only thing Jews and Americans can legitimately do is to die.

AMERICAN SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL RUNS DEEPER THAN SOME OF YOU THINK. BESIDES THE 75-100 MILLION EVANGELICALS THAT SUPPORT ISRAEL MORE THAN SOME JEWS I KNOW, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY WOULD LOOSE ABOUT HALF OF IT'S CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS. POLITICAL SUICIDE FOR ANY U.S. GOVERNMENT THAT ABANDONS ISRAEL, ESPECIALLY A NUCLEAR SUPERPOWER.
AS TO RECENT HISTORY ABOUT TRANSFERS AND DEMOCRACIES, I CAN GIVE YOU TWO-1. FRANCE AND CHARLES DE GAULLE HAD TRANSFERRED 5000 FRENCH ALGERIANS IN THE EARLY SIXTIES, WHEN THEY BROUGHT THEIR FIGHT ONTO FRENCH SOIL. 2. BRITAIN REVEALED THIS WEEK THAT SHE HAD A MASS DEPORTATION PLAN FOR THE CATHOLICS IN NORHTERN IRELAND, HAD THE TERRORISM CONTINUED AT SUCH A HIGH LEVEL.
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT REASON POLITICALLY RIGHT NOW WHY THE U.S. WILL NOT ABANDON ISRAEL IS SIMPLE- HOW ELSE COULD THEY EXERT POLITICAL INFLUENCE AND THUS HOLD BACK THE IDF.
AS TO AN ATTACK ON ISRAEL ALA U.S.A.F. ON SERBIA, THE LAST TIME THESE TWO COUNTRIES HAD IT OUT, THAT IS THE U.S. AND ISRAEL VIS A VIS DOGFIGHTS AND AIR TO AIR COMBAT WAS ABOUT 4 YEARS AGO OVER THE NEVADA DESERT- THE SCORE WAS 22O-6 IN KILLS IN FAVOR FOR THE IAF- THANK GOD IT WASN'T WITH LIVE AMMO.

It just dawned on me.

The Israeli left, educated, feeling itself 'trapped' in a mid eastern country, and, worse, feeling that they are being perceived as such, has taken to the old inferiority complex reaction of thinking it's in fact 'european'. Like the WOG's of old, and like 'new' money that tries to act like it's 'old', they are trying to be more 'european' than the europeans.

Disgusting.

#192 Maine's Michael

If you read Haaretz daily as I do you will see those guys complaining nonstop that Sharon's guilty for the worst of sins, that of making them look bad in front of their dear Euro public. If you listen to these so-called journalists it would seem that any European country is the very top in terms of morality, decency, and that they have a right to judge the world. There's nothing more intriguing to me than the absolute absence of bad press about Europe, if they haven't been colonialists, imperialists, masskilling genocidal barbarians.

#191
When France agred with Algeria's independence it became guilty of the force transfer of maybe 1 million people (including all Algerian Jews) from that country, and the massacre of many others.

The Czech expelled the Suddeten Germans after the war, before the power in the country passed to communist hands. The Benes government that did this, a mass expulsion of more than 2 million people, had been democratically elected and this action was backed by all or most other democracies.

Amy: You brought up Oslo, not me. From my opposition to transfer, you drew the conclusion that I would have condemned the Warsaw ghetto uprising if I had been alive at the time. I asked you if you are concluding that Rabin, who also opposed transfer, condemned the Warsaw ghetto uprising (he was 21 when it happened, old enough to reach an informed conclusion on the subject). I oppose transfer, but I do not draw a moral equivalence between the Nazis and the resistance fighters, as you accused me of doing. It would be just as unfair of me to conclude that your opposition to Oslo means that you supported Rabin's assassination.

You say that Sharon does what he thinks is in Israel's interests, which is true, but it is a fact that he does not support transfer. You're free to think that he might do so in the future, but I don't think he will. I also don't think anyone should conclude from that that he opposed the Warsaw ghetto uprising, which is why I brought him up in the first place.

I also did not say that Israel should be compared to Serbia in the event of transfer, I'm saying that it would be. Surely we agree that such a comparison would be made by most of the world, which is already biased against Israel. As a result, I think a NATO-like campaign would follow, and this is why I argue that independent of moral considerations, transfer would be a counter-productive policy for Israel to adopt.

THE LAST TIME THESE TWO COUNTRIES HAD IT OUT, THAT IS THE U.S. AND ISRAEL VIS A VIS DOGFIGHTS AND AIR TO AIR COMBAT WAS ABOUT 4 YEARS AGO OVER THE NEVADA DESERT- THE SCORE WAS 22O-6 IN KILLS IN FAVOR FOR THE IAF- THANK GOD IT WASN'T WITH LIVE AMMO.

Abu ben Bubbi,

Any source for tht interesting little tid bit?

Nelson,

I used to read those boobs at Haaretz. I now only read the hard news, not the editorials. Interestingly, an Israeli military man has recently said he reads Amira Hass to better understand what the pals are thinking, and where they might have slipped up on security.

Those idots are blwoing on a house of cards. I'd call them bufoons if their actions weren't so damaging.

Haggai,

You had me fooled with your name, which is very UN-diaspora. I was sure you were Israeli. While I do not know what is in Sharon's heart of hearts, I would wager a lot of money that it remains 'jordan is palestine', his machiavellian machinations to remain in power at all costs by coddling the american realtionship notwithstanding.

China and India are close to 30% of the world's population, and alone can support tiny Israel with trade.
The decision makers in washington would never abandon Israel over transfer, and the US is the only military power that counts.

Europe is lost. It is being slowly but surely colonized by the mid east and North Africa, and, if it remains democratic, will see its policies become ever more anti israel over time. There will be no satisfying europe by israel short of Israel's suicide. Europe is a write-off, in this sphere.

Haggai,

One more thing. No one knows what rabin would have done. He might have bailed out on Oslo long before Shimon Peres, who still hasn't. What difference does it make, today?

He was not the perfect leader or of the wisest judgement, at all times, as even his autobigraphy will make clear. Since his murder, it has become unfashionable to criticize him for fear of being tarred wiuth the same brush as his murderer.

Transfer out of Israel would take an incredible amount of resolve the Israelis just don't have right now.

I suspect that resolve may come once the war on Iraq begins. Everybody knows exactly what Hussein did during Desert Storm. I would expect worse this time, not only from Hussein but also his symbiot Arafat. I wouldn't be surprised to see Syria/Lebannon begin major agitation to the north either.

I'd love to see Israel do as they did in '67 and pre-empt that. Clobber Syria/Lebannon, work with the U.S. on Iraq and seriously consider transfer or some other method of eliminating the problem of the Arabs in the Palestinian territory. Not verging on "final solution" but you get the point. At the same time, let Egypt, Jordon and the Saudis know they can expect the same if they interfere.

I can dream can't I?

Maine's M: I was born in Israel, my parents grew up there, and most of my family still lives there. I don't know what Rabin would have done either, but I'm confident in asserting that he would not have responded to the intifada with transfer. In any event, I salute you, E. Nough, and J. Lichty for airing out our disagreements in a civilized fashion without hiding behind insults.

Haggai,

To tell you the truth, I'm tired of going over and over the same points with you.

You brought up Rabin as not supporting transfer, which is why I brought up Oslo, which I consider a major mistake. My point was that your citing Rabin as an example is unpersuasive, since he's the one who inflicted the Oslo mess on Israel in the first place. That doesn't mean that I think he would have condemned the Warwaw uprising - that's ridiculous. In fact, I think that if he were still around to see the outcome of Oslo, he would reverse himself completely and would support transfer.

As for Sharon, I think that he will have to change his stated policy on a Palestinian state and transfer. There is no way that a Palestinian state can be permitted to come into existence under the present circumstances. And I believe that the majority of the Israeli public would oppose such a suicidal move.

As for what the rest of the world will think, if past U.N. resolutions against Israel are any indication, the world will react in its usual biased manner. As for a U.N. action against Israel, that will not happen without U.S. participation, and the U.S. is not about to engage an ally militarily; at best, the U.S. will express disapproval and stay out of it otherwise. And without the U.S., who is going to do it? England? I don't think so. France and Germany? Maybe, but they'd be in for the fight of their lives. And what would they use for bases? The Arab countries? I hope they do! That would give Israel the excuse she'd need to bomb Damascus, Baghdad, Riyad, Cairo and Beirut to oblivion, not to mention Ramallah, Nablus, Gaza City and the rest of that snakepit.

Transfer does not address the problem – terror. Terror will not be won with a defensive strategy – and transfer and separation are both defensive strategies. Terror will be won only with an offensive campaign. IDF has been doing a better job of it in the past month – and I expect the offensive to intensify. The terror is trans national – Palestinian terror is state supported and that support will have to be stopped somehow.

Amy, you did say that I would have condemned the Warsaw ghetto uprising, based solely on my opposition to transfer. You didn't apologize for that, so I guess you still think I'm a Nazi sympathizer.

I know this must sound terribly feeble but would it make any difference at all (and what would be the consequences) if Israel officially declared war on the PA as supporters of terror like the U.S. did on al-Qaida? We all know that an unofficial state of war exists. Is there any benefit (or detriment) in making it official?

E. Nough #128,

I think there is an additional argument against transfer that needs to be considered. Without in anyway making light of the terrible onslaught that Israel is having to endure at present, there are several factors underlying the present situation which are highly auspicious:

* Following 9/11, the American public and Administration are both ready for a serious confrontation with Arab/Islamic fanaticism.

* With the impending liberation and democratisation of Iraq, the world is about to discover that political fanaticism can be defeated by instituting a fully functioning democracy.

* President Bush has made American support for a Palestinian state contingent on a similar democratisation of Palestinian society.

* Prime Minister Sharon has, in principle, endorsed this policy.

The upshot is that for the first time in a long time both America and Israel have a policy stance towards the Palestinians which their respective electorates are sufficiently morally comfortable with, to be prepared to support whatever degree of military force proves necessary to bring it to a successful conclusion.

The same, however, cannot be said about the proposal for transfer. Although Israel has the military capacity to enact such a policy, I doubt that the Israeli and American public would continue to support the military measures that would be necessary, in its aftermath, to deter the Arab world from mounting a world-wide terrorist campaign against Jews in Israel and the rest of the world.

In my view, even if Israel was ready to wage all-out conventional war against any Arab country that allowed its territory to be used for planning or mounting terrorist attacks against Israel, that still wouldn't put an end to the terrorism. As is the case with Saddam Hussein at present, following a transfer of Palestinians out of the West Bank, all Arab leaders would come to fear their people's visceral hatred of the Jews, more than they feared any degree of military damage that Israel could inflict with conventional weapons.

And the longer this situation would drag on, the more the consent of the American and Israeli public for massive military retaliation against Arab populations would dissipate. To put it simply, I think this policy would have no chance of working without Israel killing literally millions of Arabs. But even then, I don't think it would work. Only a WWII-style destruction of the Arab countries' infrastructures, followed by a prolonged occupation, would be guaranteed to work. And Israel doesn't have the resources for that, even if she had the stomach -- which she doesn't.

I think we have to face the fact that just like the Nazi culture before it, the anti-Semitism ingrained in modern Arab culture is incurable without a total heart-and-mind transformation of those societies. No amount of incrementally applied external coercion will do the job.

If the Palestinians are expelled, the entire Arab world will become infected with the mentality of the suicide bomber. That is not the solution. The solution is to do for the Palestinians what America and Britain are about to for Iraq: We should use whatever means are necessary to civilise the institutions of Palestinian society, and when that is done, give them their state, within boundaries that will be finalised once all vestiges of terrorism have been eradicated. If this is done in the cause of creating a Palestinian state, no Arab country will dare actively thwart America.

The strength of this approach is that so long as we are seen to be using as much force as necessary, but no more, the American and Israeli public will continue to provide their moral consent for necessary means. Any proposal that does not hold out a similar prospect of sustaining our peoples' moral consent until peace has been won, is strategically flawed and morally questionable.

Kolya,

With all due respect, your plan is what Oslo was about.

Been there. Done that.

Next idea?

Maine's Michael,

Oslo was about asking the Palestinians to do that. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about using the minimum amount of force to get the job done.

Haggai,

I don't see any need for me to apologize. I didn't say you were a Nazi sympathizer; what I said was that you don't see Israel's need to do whatever she needs to do to defend herself now, and you probably wouldn't have 60 years ago vis-a-vis the Warsaw ghetto, either. Jews have sometimes been their own worst enemies with a "don't rock the boat or everyone will be angry with us" mentality.

how ironic that today the History Channel is showing two documentaries dealing with the Entebbe Raid and Operation Wrath of God,Israel's most famous anti terrorists campaigns and although these events took place less then 30 years ago I swear it appears I'm watching history of ancient Judah. The country that declared an all out war on terrorism that didnt give a rats ass about colatteral damage,that swore to "smite terrorists wherever they were", no longer exists.I bet the response for today's atrocity will be DEAD BUILDINGS. EMPTY DEAD BUILDINGS. But it needs to be 30000 dead Pals.That what worked for king Hussein in 1970. By the way Haggai, Itzhak Rabbin was the person who "ordered to break the bones"in the first intifada. Apparently he also expelled inhabitants of several Palestinian villages who were involved in anti Israeli activity during the War of Independence.

Kolya, you made some excellent comments in #203. I think you're right, though I'm not sure how you'd accomplish this:

The solution is to do for the Palestinians what America and Britain are about to for Iraq: We should use whatever means are necessary to civilise the institutions of Palestinian society, and when that is done, give them their state, within boundaries that will be finalised once all vestiges of terrorism have been eradicated.

The problem with this solution is that it requires that the neighboring countries be disallowed from interfering with the Palestinians, in service of their own rather transparent agendas. Until there's a way to do this (and right now, there isn't), any Israeli efforts at "democratizing" the Palestinians will be for naught. They had more than twenty years, from 1967 until the reign of General Arafish to turn the West Bank and Gaza into democratic societies, and all they got was Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

I agree with you (and Yehudit, and Meryl, and Sir Lichty) that transfer is extremely difficult, and will come at a heavy price. That's why I think it's an option of last resort; the last stop before an all-out war that will result in Arab death tolls in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. But your alternative would require what amounts to a complete reordering of Arab society, at least throughout the Middle East, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, not to mention Saudi Arabia and Iraq. I don't know whether this will happen in time to divert Arabs from their cataclysmic head-on crash with Israel. I sure hope so.

I "probably wouldn't have 60 years ago," Amy? As a matter of fact, I would have supported the Warsaw ghetto uprising. My own grandfather went to his death as a Resistance fighter in Poland, and even though my father never met him and knows nothing else about him, I'm proud to be his descendant. And even though you didn't know those facts, you had no right to assume that I wouldn't have supported the uprising. But since you didn't consider it a cheap shot before, I guess there's not much point in arguing any further.

Maine's Michael writes to Kolya:

With all due respect, your plan [democratize the Palestinians] is what Oslo was about.

Kolya responds:

Oslo was about asking the Palestinians to do that.

And in the meantime, the idea was to put in a "strong hand" such as Arafat, so he can keep order and give the Israelis someone to work with.

It seemed like a sound idea at first. Too bad no one seemed to ask themselves just what on earth would be Arafat's incentive to "make peace" in order to be the leader of an pathetic, impoverished non-state entity stuffed between his two old enemies. Maybe everyone was too busy polishing their shelves for the Nobel Peace Prizes, or maybe they were convinced that their cause was so righteous that lowly practical matters would fall before it, or maybe they truly were convinced that Arafat was a latter-day Saladin, sacrificing for his people. (Any of these would be classic idiotarianism, don't you think?)

In any case, democratizing the Palestinians is not the answer. I've said it before, but democracy is not the result; it is the method. Many changes would have to occur in Palestinian society before a real democracy could take hold; until they do, nothing will happen. Unfortunately, absent a forcible defeat, occupation, and root-and-branch conversion a là Germany and Japan, such a change happens at a glacial pace. My fear is that the Arabs will run out of time.

Yehudit points out in #175:

Not once in any of these posts advocating transfer has anyone said WHERE all these Pals are going to go.

How's this for a scenario:

Israel re-invades southern Lebanon. (The Hizbollah would be dumb enough to provide a pretext.) Tent cities are set up at various points. Palestinians are offered passage and compensation to pull up stakes and go to Lebanon; maybe even a lottery system is set up to distribute unused land. Those who wish to go elsewhere, are free to do so using whatever means they have (e.g. asylum in Europe or Iraq). Some deadline is provided, by which if a West Bank city is not emptied, it will be destroyed. This threat is carried out if necessary.

When all the Arabs are either gone or dead, the Israeli army withdraws from southern Lebanon, and seals the northern border.

Not easy, not fun, a logistical and PR nightmare. But not impossible if all else fails.

Reason number 4,000,000 why there can never be a peaceful Palestinian state west of the Jordan.

Skinner: And the winner of the shoe buffer . . . Ned Flanders.

Homer: Stupid Flanders, how come I never win.

Marge: Homer you have one of those at home and you never use it.

Homer: But I wanted that one.

and in the immortal words of Hannibal Lecter. "He covets"

They are nothing but barnacles on the hull of modern society.

Time to scrape 'em off.

Transfer the Pals to the Marianas Trench.
Re-unification with MohammeFaster,Faster.
To the number of posters who doubt American support for Israel in this or similar strategies, I think you are sorely mistaken. While the Left gets alot of press, and celebrities confuse their mouths with their rectums,the truth of the matter is even the KKK would support it,(then try to force all Jews to the homeland--oh well strange bedfellows). Do not underestimate the "Silent Majority" we are pissed off, mad as hell and we won't take it anymore (I really hate using popular culture for quotes,but in this case it fits)

E. Nough,

Jordan is the territory that has the best legal case as haven for 'palestinians', comprising 75% plus of the 'palestine mandate' handed to britain for (fucked up) adminisration after the ottomans were defeated. It also has a majority pal population ruled by bedouin intelopers installed by the british, and they rule through intimadation, vilence, and murder.

So, one way or another (succession of the current king's half palestinian son, his removal in a coup, or Jordan democratizing - ha, ha) jordan becomes a palestinian state in the medium term.

The midget king knows his legal position in Jordan is piss-poor, hence his friendship with an Israel that should have helped his enemies overthrow him on numerous occasions, but instead came to his aid, shortsightedly and out of desperation for a friend in the region.

Of course, they can also go to a piece of Iraq carved out for them . . . or they can go, with the Jews' blessings, as someone else suggested, to europe to live in the properties the six million who perished left behind.

Kolya:

Ideas about forcing people to become democratic and peace-loving, at gunpoint, are ridiculous. There's no assurance, furthemore, that democratic arabs will be any more peace-loving than those ruled by despots. Not if the 'hardwiring' theories hold water (which i believe they do).

#214

Hey, in

"they can go, with the Jews' blessings, as someone else suggested, to europe to live in the properties the six million who perished left behind"

that "someone" is this humble servant of yours.
It shouldn't be forgotten either that a million or two of Paleos in the old continent would be some food for thought for our Euro friends. And there's even a remote possibility that, coming to think of it, they'd get to some conclusions somewhat different from those to which they've been getting lately. There's nothing like the smell of cordite to wake people up, even if they're hybernating transnational progressive Europeans.
BTW, did the Europeans give some thought to the fact that whatever the Paleos and North Koreans are doing could influence, say, the Ukrainians and Byelorussians, not to say the Russians themselves, who have an army, over a hundred maffias and would love to see lots of hard currency flowing in their direction?
Their idea seems to be that if you pay before being openly blackmailed you'll look generous instead of weak and coward, but I don't think that's the way their more rapacious neighbours think. I just wonder how, when they begin being really blackmailed by everybody, will they have the money to pay for it while working 35 hours a week (if you call that work).

Maine's Michael writes:

Ideas about forcing people to become democratic and peace-loving, at gunpoint, are ridiculous.

Oh? It worked well enough for the U.S. after WWII.

Haggai,

The supreme irony of your statement is that you are applying hindsight, and that's the cheapest shot of all.

What I said was if YOU had been there (without knowing the outcome from the vantage point of living 60 years later), and YOU had had YOUR attitudes, as YOU have demonstrated them here, YOU wouldn't have been in favor of the Jews' defending themselves, since YOU seem not to be in favor of their defending themselves now.

By "defending themselves" I mean using whatever means are necessary to put an end to Palestinian bloodletting, including expulsion, which is a damn sight more humane than simply carpet-bombing the whole stinking hellhole.

In saying what I said, I was talking about YOU, not your heroic grandfather (no irony intended).

Expulsion should be an option if for no other reason than to make the Palestinian sadists think twice about continuing their savagery. I'm thinking about the Palestinian woman who said a few months ago that Ramallah was a peaceful place to live until Arafat came and turned it into another Beirut. Well, let's find that woman a more peaceful place to live without Arafat and the rest of his terrorist buddies.

You mean my attitudes as you perceive them. Unlike yourself, I do not think that anyone who doesn't favor transfer is a coward or not a true friend of Israel. As we obviously disagree on that fundamental point, I guess the discussion has nowhere else to go.

Haggai,

Your last sentence is the first thing you've said that I agree with.

Charles wrote:

The animals are going to be partying tonight in Gaza.

Not partying just yet, since the IAF fired nine missiles at targets in Gaza City (awesome shot). Still, they are chanting anti-Israel slogans, kids included. Animals.

When I was looking at [Link: www.islam-online.net...] (Islamist outrage at some slight to the religion of peace) I spotted
[Link: www.islam-online.net...] which refers to "double resistance attack". I guess they wouldn't use "terrorist attack" (hell, the mainstream media doesn't, why would they?) and "suicide bombing" is not allowed as suicide is a sin (what about murdering Jews ... but I digress).

With regards to transfer ... a far more "politically correct" transfer would be for Jewish "settlers" to leave Palestine and erect non-porous borders. Yes it'd be morally repugnant (as would transfer of Palestinians into Jordan/Egypt), but it'd me more acceptible to the wider community and Israel would expose anti-Israel sentiment for what it is having satisfied "reasonable demands". Pre-1967 borders aren't the most defendable in the world, but the IDF can kick any Arab army's backside so it wouldn't matter that much.

Maine's Michael:

The 'hardwiring' theories (known as sociobiology) do not hold water. See this thread.

I see you posted in the thread, but your last post came before most of the meat of the arguments against sociobiology. And in any case, I think the posts in that thread are worth reading multiple times.

E. Nough,

I agree with you completely when you say in #210:

In any case, democratizing the Palestinians is not the answer. I've said it before, but democracy is not the result; it is the method. Many changes would have to occur in Palestinian society before a real democracy could take hold; until they do, nothing will happen.

The required transformation of Palestinian society cannot be accomplished just by setting up the right institutions. It requires the infusion of the right values, and the establishment of the right traditions in Palestinian society. As you say in #216, this was successfully accomplished in Germany and Japan after WWII.

I also agree with your qualified optimism about the prospects for liberalising Iraq, in your excellent post on the whole issue of the relationship of democracy and liberty:

Iraq, being a relatively secular and educated country, may find this path very quickly (especially with American help).

As regards the Palestinians, you rightly say in #208:

The problem with this solution is that it requires that the neighboring countries be disallowed from interfering with the Palestinians, in service of their own rather transparent agendas. Until there's a way to do this (and right now, there isn't), any Israeli efforts at "democratizing" the Palestinians will be for naught.

Now I don't see an insurmountable problem here. I envisage a scenario where Saddam is out of the picture, the Iraqi people are enthusiastically exploring their new found freedoms, America and Britain are busy implementing a plan for the regeneration of the Iraqi economy, various political consultative processes are in train to build consent for a root-and-branch transformation of Iraqi society.

Now suppose that America, still basking in the political and military kudos of her recent triumph in Iraq, tells the Arab world: "We want your active support in doing for the Palestinians what we are doing for the Iraqis. If you help us, your reward will be a sovereign Palestinian state. If you thwart us your reward will be our unstinting support for Israel while she solves her security problems as she sees fit. What's it to be?"

I think Jordan, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia would agree to this. I think the Europeans would back it. I think that given a free choice, the majority of Palestinians would acquiesce in it. Only Hamas and their ilk, together with Syria and Lebanon would actively oppose it. But I don't think they alone could necessarily derail the strategy.

The basis of this idea is to achieve a critical mass of consent for this policy among the Arabs themselves, and use, say, European peace keeping troops to defend the implementation stage from being sabotaged by the Islamicists.

Many people here will say that this is completely unrealistic. But I think it may look a whole lot more realistic in six months' time.

My first post in this thread, #82, was factually incorrect, as we now know al Aqsa Martrys Brigades to be the responsible party. I couldn't let that pass without correction.

I think this article captures the emotion of those of us who favor transfer pretty well.

We are brain-dead if we accept the idea that we have to guess which Arab is our next killer. We are not obligated to victimize ourselves by letting the Arabs play Russian roulette with Jewish lives. Israelis are constantly asked the same obnoxious question " How can you throw the Arabs out, where would they go?" The answer is if they don't care whom they kill, why are we obligated to care where they go?

If a gang of killers lived across the street, would you allow them to keep throwing bombs through your window until you can find them another apartment? Are we morally obligated to become a real estate agent for every Arab suicide bomber? We are not obligated to accept a new, slower Holocaust as the inevitable fate of our people. Jordan did not take a poll of world opinion and neither did Kuwait before they routed the Palestinians out of their countries.

#222

The 'hardwiring' I'm talking about is the low level brain damage incurred by child abuse and maleducation discussed here.

I said it last April, and I'll say it again now: TRANSFER. The Palestinians are barbarians who will never live in peace with Israel. Push them to the other side of the Jordan.

Take a look at this face - only 20 years old -

[Link: www.jpost.com...]

I'm so fucking depressed.