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There's a difference?


True, I totally admit that my candid manner tends to raise hackles. That's why I generally leave the eloquence and articulation to folks of Roger's caliber. At the same time, for telling the truth, I got hit with the "tolerance" tag.
So my wanting to defend my country is intolerant? My wanting to keep the money I earn is intolerant? My wanting to protect my girls from possibly being forced into a culture that mutilates girls' privates and treats women as second class citizens is intolerant? Well, gee whiz you must have me pegged then. Good on you

Another thing I admit I am intolerant of is seeing the logic and common sense presented by right-thinking people continually shot down by emotional raving, so I'm out. Ya'll have fun in your civil discourse.


TEEEEEEEEJ

TEEEJ has announced that she's out of this thread, so she probably won't even see this, but as I feel that she has twisted my words from their original intention, I would like to clear up any possible misunderstandings.

I was not trying to hide my sarcasm when I made my first response to her, but I thank TEEEJ for making sure it was plain to everyone.

And then she responded to me:
My sarcasm about her tolerance had nothing to do with her defending her country, or keeping her money, or keeping her children safe. It had SOLELY to do with her interpretation about the differences in thought processes between conservatives and liberals. That was the only comment of hers that I quoted, and the only one that I was referring to.

Finally, I would like to apologize to everyone for my role in the degeneration of this thread. For a great many posts it was a thoughtful and interesting discussion of different political views, and I hope that can resume.

Kathy

I keep posting here expecting that I'll regret it. Maybe this'll be the time.

The problem is that you can't argue with someone who has decided that her personal opinion is simple, obvious, irrefutable, objective fact. Best you can do is sit back and try to appreciate the ironies.

Moving on (or perhaps back) to Israel, then...

Mossad has done an amazing job of protecting the country from attack. The country is surrounded by enemies. Their neighbors refuse to acknowledge that they even have a right to exist, and have vowed to wipe them off the map, drive them into the sea, and kill as many as possible doing it. But they're still there.

When they identified a nuclear reactor that was producing materials for WMDs, they had an appropriate response. They snuck in and took out that specific building. No invasion. No killing of innocent civilians. Just a single surgical strike, leaving the clear message that the threat will not be tolerated.

So, yes. There have been attacks against them. Suicide bombers, car bombs, insurgents... Those aren't the kind of attacks you can stop with intelligence organizations. They're not the kind you can stop with military attack, either, as shown in both Israel and Iraq. When you're faced with fanatics who will scrounge together whatever weapons they can get, there's only so much you can do.

You can try to limit their supplies. Make sure that they can't get their hands on seriously destructive stuff. You go after their funding and supporters. You can use guards and security protocols to catch more attacks and minimize the impact of the ones that get through. But that's only symptomatic treatment.

The only real solution is education. You have to combat the hate and lies and propaganda. Otherwise, they'll keep attacking, generation after generation, with whatever weapons they can get.

As for Israel's response to attack...

Little kids, raised on blind hate, were throwing rocks at Israelis, particularly Israeli soldiers. People said "They're just kids, they're just rocks." But thrown rocks (or rocks dropped from low roofs) can break bones. If they hit you in the head, they can cause serious brain damage, even death. A rock thrown at our car when we were on an Israeli highway (thrown with no idea of who we were or why we were there) blew out a tire. That single rock could have caused an accident that would have killed our whole family and the people in any other cars involved.

To combat the problem, Israeli soldiers (for the most part, teenage draftees) were set on patrol. To try to keep order. To protect themselves and others, they were given guns that fired rubber bullets. Rubber bullets can hurt, but they're most likely to cause little more than bruising. They're used by US police for riot control - when they go out expecting to find out-of-control civilians who might be doing dangerous things like throwing rocks.

So we have these kids who are throwing rocks. Attacking people just because they're Israeli, but particularly targeting soldiers.

And then we have the soldiers, who are barely more than kids themselves, out on patrol. Tasked with keeping the peace, ordered to fire only in self-defense or defense of civilians.

Kid throws a rock. Soldier fires a few rubber bullets at him. What happens? There's an international backlash. "Look at this! They're just kids! And here are these big, mean soldiers with guns shooting at them! Someone has to stop these violent Israelis!" Exactly the kind of thing Ann echoed above.

And yes, the country has become more aggressive in recent years. For decades, they tried the more passive approach. They tried defense only. But they were criticized for defending themselves, and the attacks didn't stop. They tried negotiation, but extremists kept stopping the process. And, really, you can't negotiate when the other side not only refuses to even try to stop the extremists but are even quietly helping them. They tried giving away bits and pieces of the country, but it didn't really slow the violence. And so, finally, they started pushing back.

I don't know that it's the right answer. I don't know what the right answer is. And I do know that Roger is going to seize on this as proof that the US needs to take a hard-line, militaristic approach, too. I don't agree that the situations are the same, and I don't agree that the response is doing any good. But I can understand why they've opted for it.

Of course, I'm not claiming the Israelis are perfect. They have their extremists, too. And, in general... you have this kind of violent, long-standing, two-sided conflict, and, inevitably, people become polarized over it. The hate is reflected, the racism spreads, it all becomes more and more entrenched.

Israel has done wrong, too. But, considering the circumstances, I think they've done remarkably well. I just wish there was a way to settle the situation. To get people on both sides to recognize each other as human beings and individuals.

I don't think anyone knows what the answer is in the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict. Wiser men than we have tried to solve their seemingly intractable problems.

My point before had only to do with covert operations versus dozens of hard to find targets. It wouldn't work at all with a situation like Iran whereas with the Incirlik reactor in Iraq back in the 80's it was a great solution. The Israelis likely kept the Iraqis from gaining nuclear weapons. While our politicians slapped Israel's wrists for their incursion, behind closed doors they were back slapping and high-fiving the Israeli ambassador. Iran had learned from the Incirlik operation and had made sure their facilities were diversified beyond the ability of even the United States from taking them out in all likelihood.

On virtually all of what you said, I agree with you 100%. Education is important in the region to try to erase centuries of blind hatred. The Arab behind the curtain really isn't a monster, neither is the Jew around the corner. While I think hatreds can be eased over time, especially in this day and age when information is so easily discovered and so hard to suppress, it'll take many lifetimes, I think.

The democracy experiment in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories is one of those educational experiences. If people feel they are part of a government that they helped to create, then those preaching hatred and blaming Israel for all their problems will find fewer and fewer audiences willing to listen to their messages of hate. With Iraqis concentrating on becoming a unified nation, no matter how rocky the path, they no longer pose any sort of threat to Israel. There's no guarantee in the future, but for now, Iraq is not a problem for Israel.

Zarqawi realized the dangers of democracy several years ago. An intercepted letter from Zarqawi to bin Laden showed how much he feared democracy and what it would do to their movement. He felt that a democracy taking hold in Iraq would force them out, requiring al Qaeda to find a new home. If democracy were to spread further, that could destroy their cause, which is why they've fought so hard to destroy the nascent government.

There will always be the completely unreasonable ones like al Qaeda where no amount of negotiations or attempts at being friends will ever work. Those are the ones to keep an eye on, the ones for which the military option must always be open. Even with Iran, though, there is always hope. The population is very young, half 25 or under, who have been exposed to western culture to some degree. Many of them aren't happy living under a theocracy controlled by the mullahs. Some day the theocracy could end, which could potentially end the threat from Iran. For now, though, they are the main ones to keep close tabs on.

For most of the Middle East, I think that eventually there could be a solution. Every so often, we feel like we're so close to finding a resolution all parties can agree upon and then somebody tosses a hand grenade into the room, sometimes literally. Carter came very close and brought together Egypt and Israel. Jordan came to an agreement with Israel and ceased being a blood enemy. Clinton tried and came close with the Palestinians. I thought Bush's proposal for a homeland had great promise, especially since real elections were held in Gaza and the West Bank.

Who knows? Maybe someday a president will succeed in bringing them together. The United States is the only country with the clout on both sides to do it. If democracy can hold in the Palestinian territories, perhaps the Palestinians and Israelis can finally come to an agreement and live in peace. Once that happens, maybe the military option can be shelved once and for all.

I'm hoping right with you there, Paul.

I said that I would stay out of this thread from now on. I'm sorry I was unable to.

TEEEEJ, I'm afraid that I'm not going to reply to any of your posts. You and I have very different debating styles, and I don't know how we could have a political discussion that would be, well, satisfying to me. So I'm just going to say that we have extremely different political views, and leave it at that.

Roger, you asked me:

No. First of all, Sweden isn't going to get the bomb. If a Swedish politician seriously suggested that we should, he would meet with the same reaction as if he proposed that Swedish schools should teach kids that the Earth is flat. He would be a huge embarrassment to his party, and he would have to recant or be expelled. (Unless he represented one of those kooky fringe parties that no one pays any attention to.)

Second, if Sweden were to get the bomb after all - which I guess could happen in the future after all, because no one can foresee the future - then no, if the political climate stays the same as it is now, then I'd say that there is a 99.999999999% chance that the U.S. would not attack Sweden. And no, I'm not losing sleep over the 0.00000000001% chance that it would.

However, Roger, the reason why I'm posting again is because I need to ask you a question. You say that weapons of mass destruction were really found in Iraq, and therefore, if I get you correctly, President Bush was right when he said that Iraq was a threat to the world that needed to be dealt with urgently. You posted a link which I could follow to find corroberation of this. I'm sorry that I have not read the text you suggested that I read. But, Roger, to me it is so much less interesting to know why I haven't read that text before, as it is to know why the world's dominant media don't seem to have read that text before. I try to know what is going on in the world by following, as well as I can, what important media is reporting. And to the best of my knowledge, no important media have ever claimed that WMDs were indeed found in Iraq.

Let me explain my reasons for saying that important media have not reported the finding of WMDs in Iraq:

I regularly read New York Times, The Guardian, Time and Newsweek. I sometimes read The Washington Post and The Times. I watch political documentaries on TV. Almost every week I listen to a Swedish radio program, Konflikt (Conflict), which makes a point of it to let proponents of different political ideas and convictions express and explain their views.

Why haven't I ever read in New York Times, The Guardian, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post or The Times that Iraq really did have WMDs? Why haven't any of the TV documentaries about Iraq said that Iraq had WMDs? Why haven't anyone who was interviewed on "Konflikt" said that Iraq had WMDs?

Is it because I only read, watch or listen to liberal media? No, that is not the reason. Because conservative voices are indeed invited to express their views in liberal media, too. For example, one of the Op-Ed contributors to New York Times these days is William Kristol. Charles Krauthammer regularly writes for Time. I have heard many conservative people being interviewed on "Konflikt", for example Krauthammer and John Bolton. Most Swedish dailies are actually politically conservative, believe it or not, and at least between 2003 and 2005 they repeatedly defended the Iraq war to a skeptical or hostile Swedish population. Why have these conservative voices never told me that significant WMDs were found in Iraq?

I remember that Colin Powell made a dramatic speech in the U.N. on the eve of the war, where he put all his prestige on the line when he insisted that Iraq was an immediate threat to the whole world because of the WMDs that it almost certainly possessed. Colin Powell later resigned and recanted. He expressed regret that he had made that speech in the U.N. If he knew, by the time when he resigned, that WMDs really had been found in Iraq, why didn't he say so?

I remember that a year or so ago, Swedish radio reported that the American WMD inspectors in Iraq had given up looking for WMDs there. The newscaster said that no WMDs had been found in Iraq. Why would Swedish radio make such a claim if it was blatantly untrue?

And why didn't I see any news reports elsewhere claiming that WMDs had been found, if that was actually the case?

I don't have the time or the energy to read every little article that people might want me to read. I have to rely on world media. I have to trust that they tell me more or less the truth. I try to check their credibility by memorizing what they tell me and checking what predictions they make. Then I try to see if those predictions come true. If they do, I note that these media were knowledgeable and trustworthy. If the predictions don't come true, and the media themselves point this out and apologize for their inability to make predicitons and explain the reason for their failure, then they strike me as honest and serious. If they make predictions which don't come true, and yet they don't acknowledge their own failures, then they strike me as rather trashy media, not worthy of taking seriously.

I try to weigh and assess the information I get through the media. And as for the WMDs in Iraq, I know that I have read again and again, in New York Times, in The Guardian, in Time and Newsweek, in the Washington Post and in The Times, that there weren't any WMDs in Iraq. The TV documentaries I have seen which have addressed the question have said that there weren't any WMDs in Iraq. It has been said on "Konflikt" several times that there weren't any WMDs in Iraq.

I even remember that back in 2003, you could use Google and make it display a page saying "These weapons of mass destruction cannot be found". Not "This page cannot be found", but "These weapons of mass destruction cannot be found".

All in all, there has been what I would call a "massive" and "univocal" reporting that there were no WMDs in Iraq. This reporting has made President Bush look like a liar, it has made the U.S. intelligence look ridiculous, and it has made the United States look bad. Surely those who like President Bush can't like this? Surely those who support the Iraq was can't be happy about this? Why haven't they spoken up? Why haven't they said, look here, there were WMDs in Iraq too! Here is where we found them! Look here!

Why haven't the conservative commentators who have their own slots in liberal media forced the issue? Why haven't they told their liberal colleagues to stop lying about the WMDs in Iraq? Why haven't they made so much noise that the liberal media had no choice but to address the issue?

Roger, it is all well and good that you have given me a link where I can read all about the presence about WMDs in Iraq. But I can't get my information that way in the long run. I have to rely on big world media. If you want me to read that link which you posted, you have to explain to me why New York Times, The Guardian, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post and The Times have not read the information that you sent me, or why they thought it was irrelevant.

Ann

Ann, remember when I said that when the first WMD were first found, only Fox News bothered to report it? I had checked every other major news source, including most of the ones you listed that you listen to/read.

Here's one for you:

Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq

Pete Hoekstra and Rick Santorum, at the time members of their respective Intelligence Committees tried to get this report coverage. They were basically ignored. Santorum even went to the White House asking why they weren't touting the report. The answer that came back was that they had fought that fight earlier and had lost. It was time to move on. Essentially the Bush Administration had lost the fight and weren't willing to stir up the controversy again. It was an incredulous statement, especially since it went straight towards the president's credibility. Instead the administration left people with the impression that there were no WMD's and there never were any to find.

The only reason I can figure that nobody wanted to report it was that it didn't constitute evidence of an ongoing weapons program. But the ISG report did state that they were ready to begin again once sanctions were removed as I've stated twice before.

Reporters are people. If a story doesn't fit into their world view, it's not news. And their world view was that there were no WMD's.

When you heard administration officials talk about WMD, they were always careful with their words. They never stated there were no WMD found in Iraq. They only said there were no "stockpiles" found. That's the difference that always confuses everyone.

I mentioned in an earlier post that the Poles had gotten wind of some rockets containing cyclosarin that were about to be sold and bought them out from under the terrorists. Here's a link to that story:

Shell Shock

Here's another link pertaining to the reports of chemical weapons precursors found. This story also tries to guess at why reporters weren't interested or why the government wasn't terribly eager to tout the findings.

Saddam\'s WMD Have Been Found

Here's a summary of the Iraq Survey Group's report. Note one of the highlights:

Wikipedia: Iraq Survey Group

It seems to me that what you are telling me is that Saddam wanted to have the bomb. Yes, I don't doubt for a moment that he did. And some people want to pick down the moon. The question is, what are they in fact able to do?

Saddam wanted the bomb. That is why there were all those international sanctions against him. And that is why all those international experts said that Saddam didn't have the bomb: he wanted to have it, yes, but he wasn't able to get it.

You quoted this part of the Iraq Survey Group to me:

Who said that sanctions would be removed? I don't remember anything being said about that at all. In any case, if they had in fact been removed and I just don't remember it, it wouldn't have been hard for President Bush to insist on a very tough international weapons embargo against Iraq. He could have imposed various kinds of additional sanctions against Iraq. I don't see anyone contesting Bush over this. Everyone had agreed with Clinton on the sanctions, so why wouldn't they have agreed with Bush?

It seems to me that what you are saying is that most conservatives, including President Bush, think that the WMDs found in Iraq were nowhere near as frightening as they needed to be if they were to justify the war that was being fought against Iraq because of them. Conclusion: President Bush's initial claim that Iraq needed to be attacked because of the WMDs it possessed didn't hold up at all. All the conservative commentators who are invited to speak their minds in liberal media worldwide are, I guess, too embarrassed about the whole thing to suggest that Iraq's WMDs justified a war against that country.

I certainly agree with you on this:

Indeed. A President who is willing to defy the opinion of the majority of the people of the world, according to the surveys I have referred to earlier, and who does so because he insists that Iraq possesses dangerous WMDs, and who isn't willing, afterwards, to insist that he was right about this - well, such a President has lost all, or at least most of, his credibility in the eyes of the world.

And just one more thing. If that information from Fox News about the presence of WMDs in Iraq isn't impressive enough for President Bush, then I'm afraid that it isn't impressive enough for me.

Ann

Here's an article in the London UK Telegraph on Saddam's move to have sanctions lifted and how he was confident in that success through his bribes to the French and Russians in the Oil-for-Food program.

The relevant part of this article was:

I mentioned earlier how Saddam was relying on the French to help lift the sanctions. The Russians were also complicit. So it was a lot closer to removal than you thought.

The Sordid Truth about the Oil-For-Food Scandal

Did you read the second article called "Saddam's WMD Have Been Found?" That article details explicitly what was found. You'll find the "No WMD" story is a whole lot more complicated than you think. There was plenty found, far beyond 500 chemical warheads. I'm sure you'll find it fascinating.

It seems that your own biases are now easily allowing you to discount evidence as meaningless just like the reporters in the media have done. You just answered your own question to me. "Yeah, there were WMD, but they didn't mean anything. Bush was right. He just wasn't right enough to satisfy me, so he's still a liar."

Forgetting politics for a moment, the question I pose to you is this. Were there WMD or weren't there? Regardless of how the politicians acted, was Bush right about the presence of WMD? If your answer is no, then what do you believe those 500 warheads were? And what were those biological warfare strains found? Or the delivery systems that were found? Or the chemical weapons precursors that were found? If you've read any of those stories, you'll start to doubt the mainstream media. Why weren't any of these things at least reported so that there could be a discussion about it? Why not at least an editorial saying how meaningless the findings were? Instead you got the sound of crickets coming from the mainstream media. It seems to me that the media were continuing to foster the world view that nothing at all was found, and that is a lie by omission by the media. I learned long ago not to trust the media. So far they haven't disappointed me.

My guess is that the White House saw its popularity ratings go from 50% down to 30% over the debate on WMD's, saw how the press were ignoring the damaging aspects of the ISG report. They didn't want to lose another 10-20% over an argument they'd already lost. No matter what evidence was uncovered, they likely knew the mainstream press would bury it.

I would guess by now you probably have some doubt creeping in. You like thinking that Bush is a total liar and that you were completely justified in that opinion. Now all of a sudden you find evidence that maybe things aren't so cut and dried. This is all evidence I found in minutes yet you've never seen it anywhere in the mainstream media. How can that be? Maybe the media isn't being so honest. Now you have to try to change your own world view. Not so easy to do.

Since I don't trust the mainstream media as far as I can throw it, it's very easy for me to find information they won't tell me. To exclusively listen to them is locking yourself into their way of thinking. I check the mainstream media so I know what they're saying and what they're not saying and check it against my own sources and I find the mainstream media lacking.

Oh btw, my Swedish relatives tell me that a conservative in Sweden is still a socialist compared to the United States conservatives. Since they've lived in both countries they can tell the difference. So what you're listening to are left wing sources and even further left media. A Swedish conservative would fall somewhere in the left of the Democratic Party, not the extreme left, but still on the left.

Of all the sources you listed, only the Washington Times can be considered a non-leftist source. Of course you only said, "The Times," so that could actually be the LA Times. If it's the LA Times, that's a leftist paper, too.

No, I didn't read the article about Saddam's warheads. Honestly, I don't know that much about wepons. But, by and large, I expect most countries to have weapons. I would have been surprised indeed if Saddam didn't have more to defend himself with than a couple of rusty old Kalashnikovs.

I have never believed that Saddam had no weapons. Everybody does. The question is, did he have more WMDs than a lot of other countries? Were his WMDs fully functional at the time of the Iraq war? Did he have more WMDs than the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, India, Israel and Pakistan? Was he able to launch missiles against the United States? No, of course not, because if he had been, President Bush would most certainly have said so. Was he, at the time of the beginning of the Iraq war, able to launch missiles against Israel? Probably not, or President Bush would have said so. (Was Israel, at the time of the beginning of the Iraq war, able to launch missiles against Iraq? Yes, undoubtedly. And according to what I have heard on Swedish radio, some Israeli politicians or militaries have quite recently discussed the possibility of making a unilateral attack on Iran by launching a nuclear warhead at them.)

The question is not if Iraq had any weapons at all. The question is if the weapons they had made Iraq uniqely dangerous and made them a threat to the whole world, as President Bush claimed. The question is if they were dangerous enough for the United States to start a war against Iraq over their weapons.

It is up to you not to trust the mainstream media. I certainly don't completely trust them, either. For example, I remember very well how most mainstream media, including my own daily paper which I would describe as conservative, though you might describe it as socialist, said that Iraq most probably had just as many dangerous WMDs as President Bush claimed. And they said this not because they didn't have any other infomation available, because indeed they did. Left-wing Swedish media interviewed Sweden's former weapons inspectors to Iraq, who both said that President Bush's claims seemed far-fetched and improbable. And there were several other experts who were interviewed in left-wing Swedish media, too. It was not as if the information was not available to the right-wing media, but they just ignored it and repeated what President Bush had said. The right-wing media in Sweden were not interested in any facts about Iraq, only in selling the war to us. Sweden's most prestigious daily, Dagens Nyheter, has apologized afterwards, but my own daily paper, Sydsvenskan, hasn't.

I, too, know where I can easily find information that usually makes the mainstream media look biased. Of course, I usually find the information that makes mainstream media look ultra-conservative. I know people who know things, too. For example, I know two persons who have lived in Israel and who regularly return there to work for peace organizations there, and they tell me things about how the Palestinians are treated that I don't think I have read in mainstream American media for a very long time.

Ann

Part of the difficulty has been the North American 4th Estate's sloppy journalism over the last several years. Mostly they've stopped doing significant background research, asking analytical questions and writing thoughtful reports and columns. I hasten to add this isn't as true of some magazines. But it's even more true of mainstream 5th Estate news programs.

They reduce everything to high school drama, celebrity-style coverage, and sound bytes that inevitably take quotes out of context. The term 'investigative journalism' is now an oxymoron unless you want the searing truth about who propositioned whom in a public washroom.

Print and electronic media play a huge role in a democracy. They are an informal part of the 'checks and balances' principle that underlies the American constitution. By and large they failed the American people over the Iraq issue. And I'm not so sure. looking at the shallow coverage of the American primaries, that they've improved.

'Freedom of the press' is useless if it isn't exercised in a substantive way.

Although, of course , I do get a kick out of reading the National Enquirer headlines at the grocery check-out. But I shouldn't have the sense when I check out the Washington Post in the morning that it's the same newspaper as the National Enquirer.

Okay, that's my morning rant. I feel better now.

c.

You mean the way they're treated like second-class citizens? Looked down on, rarely hired, all that sort of thing?

It's awful. I have family who live there, and they see it and they don't think it's right, either.

A cousin tried hiring some of them as farmhands for a few years. Offered fair wages and fair treatment. But a lot of them were bitter and resentful. Over time, a few too many of them helped themselves to more than they'd earned. He doesn't hire so many anymore.

Like I said, it's a problem when you have two groups who don't get along stuck together for too long. The racism takes root on both sides, making it harder and harder for either one to deal well with the other.

And, when you get down to it... It's not news. Any more than widespread antisemitism in certain parts of Europe is news. It's just the way it's always been. And, let's face it, if you want to write a story about racism or religious intolerance, there are more interesting examples to be found than either of those.

Really, disparate people coming together and treating each other like human beings... that would be news.

lol, Paul. I started reading your post, thinking your 'they' referred to reporters, and than clued in that it didn't.

But for a minute there I was prepared to take up a collection for 'them'

Sorry, I see now that your post is very serious and not about media workers.

c.

lol, yeah. Your post came in as I was writing mine. Probably should have edited to make that clear. Sorry.

Paul, I don't want to talk too much about Israel, because I don't know enough about the situation there.

There is one thing I've been thinking, though. The Jews suffered what is almost comparable to one holocaust after another in Europe over the centuries. When the U.N. finally gets around to giving the Jews a land of their own, they give them a part of Palestine. Where Arab tribes already live, and have lived for centuries.

Yes, I know, I know that the Bible says that God will give the children of Israel the promised land. I have read the Bible, too. And of course I know that the Jews did live there for many centuries. There is no doubt whatsoever that King David founded a mighty kingdom there around 1000 B.C. And the Jews weren't really expelled from Palestine until, I think, 153 A.D. or thereabout.

Even so... I've been thinking to myself how I would have felt if the U.N. decided to give another homeless people, maybe the gypsies or the Kurds, their own land in Sweden. What if the U.N. decided to take the nicest part of Sweden, Skåne, where I live, and give it to the gypsies or the Kurds? I would furious, shocked, outraged... I don't know if I could get over it.

And then suppose that the gypsies or the Kurds, the people who had come to take over my land, were heavily armed by someone, maybe the Russians or the Chinese, and not only did Skåne become their land, but the "intruders" chased us away from our land, too, and shot many of us. How long would it take until we could forgive? How long would it take until we could be friends with them?

I think that many, many Arabs use Palestine as a symbol of the general Arab misery and all the unfair things that the world has done to them. Is the economy down in many Arab countries? Blame the occupation of Palestine. Are many young Arabs unemployed? Yeah, well, how can you expect Arab kids to have jobs when the world is allowed to steal everything from the Palestinians? Can Arabs get no respect? Right, what respect can you give when they can take your land away from you and shoot you when you try to defend yourself?

All of this is exaggerated. The overwhelming number of bad things that plague the Arab world has nothing to do with Palestine at all. But Palestine has become a symbol of the humiliation that the Arab world is perceived to suffer at the hands of the world. In particular, at the hands of the West. In particular, at the hands of the United States of America. (And, of course, at the hands of Israel...that goes without saying.)

I don't know what to do about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. But I do believe that as long as this conflict has not been resolved at all, and certainly as long as there are horror stories coming out of Palestine describing how their land is turned into a patchwork of little "islands" with innumerable checkpoints in between, how people get stuck for hours at checkpoints, how occasionally someone dies because they are being kept at a checkpoint and prevented from going to hospital, how people who live two miles from each other inside Palestine can't even go and visit one another, how the Israeli wall is built inside Palestinian territory, how Israeli bulldozers level Palestinian houses, how olive tree plantations are razed and destroyed, how so many Palestinian children get killed by Israeli missiles (which they have gotten from the U.S.A.) - well, as long as that is kept up, this Palestinian suffering is going to fuel Arab and Muslim anger and even hatred of the United States. That is what I believe anyway.

Ann

I'm afraid I agree with you. But then what's the answer? As Paul has said, Israel has tried some very different approaches to the problem. None of them have worked all that well. When you've got Palestinian organizations that continually proclaim that they will not rest until Israel is "pushed into the sea" and no longer exists -- organizations that have sufficient clout to keep the hostilities going (Hamas won Palestinian elections, didn't they?) -- there's not much chance of a peaceful solution.

As for the mainstream media... most of them have taken sides, and they're not going to report anything that goes against their pre-decided meta-narrative (even conservative columnists have to work with liberal editors). Carol, you are dead right about that.

Also, there seems to have been a contentious misunderstanding earlier, so at the risk of re-opening hostilities...

Ann, you responded to Roger:

And I think you misread him. No, losing one person out of 100,000 is certainly *not* evidence that someone is taking out your entire country, and I don't believe that's what Roger meant at all. He was talking about proportional response. His point, if I read him correctly, is that if a few people are killed, then a missile strike is an appropriate level of response. For the US to move to "take out an entire country" over such a small event would not at all be an appropriate response.

(The thing about hitting a camel in the rear is a sarcastic reference to an incident that took place during Clinton's administration, and I think it confused the issue.)

It took a much larger event (everyone throws around the 3000 number, but it's only the grace of God that tens of thousands weren't killed that day; if the planes had hit two hours later, or if the towers had fallen more quickly, the death toll would have been much more appalling) and the realization that a future event could take out *millions* of people (dirty bombs, suitcase nukes, etc) that prompted the US to take stronger, pre-emptive measures.

TEEEEJ... Tell you what, the next time you feel the need to compose a scathing post, you send it to me instead of posting it? I understand where you're coming from, but you can get really, um, abrasive, and it's counter-productive. 'Kay, sweetie?

PJ

It's not that the UN gave it to them. The UK had moved in and claimed the whole thing as a colony, which wasn't very popular with anyone. They promised both sides that they'd hand over control to them. That didn't work out so well, either. There was much chaos and confusion and messiness and even this is a real simplification. But, in the end, Israel managed to set up a working democratic government and then defend themselves from large-scale invasion. At some point along the way, the UN acknowledged that they were actually a country.

As for the Pallestinians... I recognize that they, too have a good claim on the same small strip of land. It's a tough issue. And sharing doesn't seem to be work too well as a solution.

I have sympathy for their plight. But I have to lay at least some of the blame for that on their own government, or lack thereof. They have leaders, but those leaders don't seem to do much for them. They take large amounts of international aid, then pocket most of that for themselves, leaving their people to live in squalor. And they refuse to do anything to even try to stop the terrorist groups that have taken root within their borders. Rather, they tend to have ties (perhaps out of necessity) to those exact groups.

So... yeah. The Palestinians are poor. And poorly educated. And not well cared for. And have to deal with Israeli suspicion and security checks. (The walls and checkpoints are a very recent development, BTW. A response to terrorists winning the Palestinian elections, IIRC.) I wish they had better. But if they had a stronger, better, less corrupt government, they wouldn't have to deal with a lot of that. And if they had a real education instead of terrorist propaganda...

If you want to talk about self-defense... most of what Israel does is out of self-defense. And, up until recently (when the populace finally got fed up with it and voted in a more hawkish government), it was remarkably restrained self-defense. And if you want to talk about missiles and bombings, what about the bombings of Israeli lands? Shells, mortars, missiles. Destroying homes, blasting farms, killing city people by the busload, putting snipers on the roofs near the holiest sites...

There are two sides to the story, Ann. You're talking as if Israel is doing all the bad stuff to the poor oppressed Palestinians. And it's just not the case. I feel bad for them. I recognize that they got a raw deal. And that they have some valid claims. But the Israelis have valid claims and raw deals and dead children, too. And it seems like sometimes they get a lot less sympathy and understanding for it.

Well said, Paul.

I think that in some quarters there's an urge to reduce the situation to a simple "oppressor vs. victim" narrative, with victims automatically having moral superiority, and since Isreal is stronger...

PJ

Paul, believe me... I told you that I tried to imagine what it would be like to have my land taken away from me, like the Palestinians have had. But I do realize that what the Jews have suffered is much worse, with repeated pogroms, culminating in the Holocaust. I can so very much sympathize with their longing for a land of their own, where they are not being persecuted. The land of Israel has therefore become enormously, enormously important to them. I think that they sometimes go too far when they protect themselves. When you hear that one Israeli student was killed, and in retaliation, dozens of Palestinians were killed... well... I can imagine what Arabs everywhere might be thinking when they hear that.

But what would I think if my home was continually being bombarded with missiles? You bet I'd want to retaliate.

I wasn't trying to point my finger at Israel, even though I probably do blame them more than you do for the current situation. But I wouldn't dream of putting all the blame on them. What I was really trying to say is that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is a bad, bad thing, which just keeps breeding more hatred. I wish I had a good suggestion about what could be done to solve it all, but I don't.

Ann

just to muddy the waters.

Prior to the UK's involvement, the Palestinian territory had been part of the Ottoman Empire, governed from Istanbul. That ended with the collapse of the Empire at the end of WW1.

Although huge numbers of Jewish (that means I don't have the stats in my head ) settled there from about 1900 onward as they fled from various pograms in Eastern Europe and, later from Nazi Germany, they came as immigrants not as 'conquerors'. For religious, historical, and cultural reasons, they chose Palestine. (although many emigrated to the US, South America, and Canada all of whom had been actively seeking immigrants.)

However a significant proportion of Jews had remained in the Middle East since Roman times - in Palestine, but also in areas now called Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. These areas also have significant numbers of Palestinians.

In 1947, when the UN set up Israel many Jews were forced to flee from those countries and took refuge in Israel. At the same time many Palestinian Moslems left Israel. Much nastiness on both sides. But , as well, a significant number of Moslems decided to remain within Israel where they are an important minority. (not just Palestinians which is why I've referred to their religion rather than their ethnicity)

I'm not sure that the analogy of taking land from Sweden and giving it to Kurds is a fair one because it ignores the cultural and historic roots which pulled European Jews to Palestine.

Anyway, I have no clue how to settle it except for, as a good Canadian I will apologise to everyone for it and of course urge the Whole World to accept Mutliculturalism, Chill, and sublimate through Hockey.

c.