A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a Netanya cafe, wounding at least 30.
Despite the appointment of Mahmoud Abbas as the new Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, it is clear that terrorism is still rampant across the Palestinian-controlled areas. The culture of terror is very much entrenched, and until this culture is changed, the prospects for any real peace are at best naive, and at worst suicidal.
If the Palestinians wanted a peaceful state, they could have one. It seems that the real goal of the intifada has less to do with freedom and everything to do with creating another Holocaust.
You’re making a better argument against what America is doing towards Iraq than for it. Israel rode into occupy the Palestine region more than 50 years ago and established a democratic society based on Western values….and the Palestinians have been intent on destroying them ever since. Now, America wants to march into Baghdad, overthrow their political leadership and mandate democratic government. Why would we assume the outcome would turn out differently than the disastrous results of Israel occupying the government of what was Palestine?
Considering that Israel is the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, I’d say that the Israeli experiment was rather successful. The reason for the terrorism has less to do with any fault of the Israeli democracy than it does with the rampant anti-Semitism of the Arab world.
I don’t object to democracy in Israel, but the Palestinians do, just as they will object to whatever democracy is mandated to them by the American government in Iraq. A well-spoken leader like Yasser Arafat will position himself as the mouthpiece for Iraq’s “oppression at the hands of imperialistic Westerners” just as is going on now in Israel. To say that the Israeli “experiment in democracy was successful” is to pretend that acts of terrorism do not occur there on a weekly basis because the Arab people don’t wait democracy, at least not the kind where they’re subservient to the values of Western leaders.
And Israel isn’t exactly a white knight in this mythology as you claim them to be. The brutality currently employed by Ariel Sharon towards Palestinian civilians has grown to epic proportions. Acts of violence and vicious retribution on a weekly basis in Israel and you call that success? If the “Israeli democracy” and its relationship to co-existing with Arabs is your idea of success in the Middle East, I fear you’re setting the bar equally low for our own level of success in post-Saddam Iraq.
The Arab world perceives America to be joined at the hip with Israel and now more than ever as we begin to occupy what they perceive to be their land as Israel did, the “rampant anti-Semitism of the Arab world” will be one and the same with the anti-Americanism of the Arab world. This is so foolish it’s beyond comprehension, and amplified by the fact that Iraq is the first in a long line of nations that the neocon social engineers of the world believe requires “regime change.” The next 20 years promises to be a bloodbath.
Israel is a functionning democracy? with right- wing religious extremists in power?
Do you think that palestinians like to blew themselves up? Do you think they are humans? I know they never were democratic, but is this a reason to think that they like to kill others and themselves?
How would you react if canadians shot missiles on your house, killing members of your family, and then started to build new houses for canadians to move in?
what would YOU do in front of a tank if you were 15 years old in the same situation? make a petition? ask for elections?
I’ve been reacting to many articles on your websites. The point is not that we disagree because, as a french, I love debates and even arguments…The thing is that you are not democratic yourself! you don’t want freeddom for others than those on YOUR side! you want to WIN, and be on the WINNERS side, whatever it take (it’s just collateral damages).
All empires have fallen in time, even the greatest and strongest. Just realise that one day, your great-grand-children could be those under missiles-rain, shocked and awefully mutilated.
what US soldiers are doing in Irak is not liberating a country, it’s playing Quake3/half-life/allied assaults/Unreal for real, on governments credits for governments friends interests…the fact that you agree on their positions just refflects what your interests are.
time will judge, but until now, no war leader was never recognized as someone good.