[FRIZ]

The Los Angeles Times
September 5, 2003

Blows to Israel Must Never Go Unanswered
By Martin Peretz

The nation's security depends upon exacting a tremendous price against those who attack it

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-peretz5sep05,1,6006716.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Jewish history had prepared neither Gentile nor Jew for the cosmic achievements the Zionist enterprise would make in the process of reconstituting a nation. These achievements are easily summarized: the ingathering of a millennially dispersed and diverse people; the regeneration of its ancient and near-moribund language; the fashioning of a lively and democratic polity and press; a genuinely independent judiciary; the mobilization of one of the two or three most proficient and scrupulous militaries in the world; the crafting of a commonwealth curious, open, tolerant — a nation-state not unlike the United States.

At the end of a century of unthinkably cruel and ultimately empty revolutions — Nazism, communism — Israel stands virtually alone in the right to assert that, after the crackup of empires and rage for popular sovereignties, it is a success, and a decent one at that.

Now envision Israel in its actual neighborhood — the tyrannical societies of the Middle East made even more twisted by corrupting and unproductive oil wealth — and you have a standing reproach to the Arab hubris that lies to itself.

From the western Sahara to the deserts abutting the Persian Gulf, not a single regime beyond Israel has so much as even embarked, or allowed its entrepreneurs to embark, on the exacting beginnings of industrial advance. This wide swath of terrain on which a quarter of a billion people live produces with all its hands and brains just about what little Finland or Spain does. Remind yourself also that not one ruler across the region governs by consent of the ruled. Evoke the phantoms of lost grandeur put in the heads of miserable boys and girls by dogma and dogmatics.

Mesh all this together and you have some sense of why the West is resented on the Arab street and why, moreover, Israel has not been able to reach, for all its accomplishments, the one quintessential and existential goal articulated by Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, that "the Jew be able to die peacefully in his own bed." And maybe he never will.

It may be that Israel is doomed to live dangerously, even if a shooting, a stabbing, even a bombing on a bus or in a mall occurs only every few years. Maybe there is no enforceable peace treaty that can truly guarantee against crackpots and random fanatics.

Israel's longtime enemy, and its enemy today, is of the very same terror that was launched on us on Sept. 11, but, if less confounding, more routine and more tolerated. It is the world's acceptance of the routinization of this killing of Jews that has so affronted Israel and its allies.

One of the fundamental and actionable principles of Zionism is that Jewish blood is no longer cheap. It follows that the shedding of Jewish blood will not pass without an accounting, without being avenged. And not just for vengeance's sake. But to bring about the elimination of the organized blood sport in Jewish lives.

The fact is that Israel has for years vacillated between responding to terror with exquisitely calibrated force and pacifying terrorists by giving them some of what they want — for example, the release of prisoners. The latter option is, of course, always the preferred path of the peace process interlocutors, even the American ones.

But, alas, despite the éclat, there had been no actual cease-fire in place since the end of June, although that was the absolute precondition of the "road map." Still, Israel had to pretend, not least of all to its own people, that there was. Otherwise it couldn't go on making concessions to the Palestinians, whether textually obligated or not. And if it didn't make concession after concession, everybody would know that the road map was a map to nowhere.

But no one could really pretend either that Hamas and Islamic Jihad had actually agreed to the famous hudna because day after day, week after week one or another of these groups (and sometimes two competing with each other and with the devil himself) would claim credit for some macabre death happening in Israel.

The Palestinian Authority itself renounced its obligation to squelch these murderous militias, at once asserting its impotence and claiming that any attempt to fight them would lead to civil strife it could not win. So it seemed almost ungentlemanly for the Israelis to insist that the Palestinian Authority try. After all, if the Palestinian Authority lost, Israel would be without a partner at all in the cease-fire that, as it happens, ceased very little fire, indeed.

But the keeping up of pretenses does not advance the cause of peace. Yet it is precisely the keeping up of pretenses that the high-minded folk are always recommending.

When Israel sent a helicopter gunship to kill a top Hamas leader in retaliation for the latest Jerusalem atrocity that claimed 21 Israeli lives, a New York Times editorial criticized Israel for its hasty response: "It is far from clear what would have been lost by giving the Palestinians more time."

The United States is in great measure responsible for the moral ambiguity of peace-making between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian strategy is terror, pure and simple, like the terror of Al Qaeda and whoever bombed the center of Bombay on Aug. 25. George W. Bush has not quite admitted this, but he has come close. Still, his diplomats behave as if there are two different categories of terror: one with which we can never compromise and another that we will reward with a state.

This is a bankrupt program, both morally and practically.

The reasonable solution to the Palestine question has always been a partition, and there have been various partition plans proposed since the first one enunciated by Winston Churchill in 1922. Each and every one of them has been rejected, by the surrounding Arab states and by the Palestinians.

History moves forward, but not the Arabs.

The fervor for Hamas and Islamic Jihad among the Palestinians is an expression of that rejectionism. The martyrology that attends it shows also that it is quite mad.

Israel has shown that it is willing to give up territories for a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank. It now must show that it will not tolerate a war of terror against the partition formula that, with caveats here and there, has been accepted since 1922.

The chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Moshe Yaalon, warned recently that "every Hamas member must now be considered a candidate for liquidation." Coming in the middle of a declared cease-fire, the Jerusalem bombing that killed 21 civilians has changed the ground rules because the ground itself has changed.

It is now abundantly clear that the Palestinian leadership, lubricated into power by the United States, is either unable or unwilling to fight its own terrorists. Its pledge to do so, like its pledge to reform, is either a trick or a failure. It does not really matter which.

The defeat of terror takes overwhelming force, and only Israel itself can provide it. Indeed, only Israel should.

When Israel undertook to root out the terror network in Jenin last year, it suffered 23 of its own dead, more certainly than the U.S. military would have inflicted on itself in a similar circumstance. Despite this, Israel was pummeled, not least by the United Nations, for committing atrocities that it did not commit. Now everyone knows the truth, although some still perpetuate the falsehoods. But Israel succeeded in decapitating the head of the viper from its body.

The rocket attacks of recent days on Hamas leadership in Gaza are an augury of what is about to occur: first, the building of the fence that will secure Israel's population from their inveterate foes and, then, relentless attacks on the armed irreconcilables.

These attacks will come from the air and also be fought on the streets, deftly and precisely.

There will be ululating mourners and grim-faced youth waving the bloody shirts of their martyrs. But, in the end, they will learn that Jewish blood is not cheap at all and that those who shed it will pay a tremendous price, too high a price to go on with the killing that will bring on their heads only reprisal and not, of course, the prize of a state.

Martin Peretz is editor in chief of the New Republic.

[SGT109FA]

Its ashame that no one ever really sees how good Israel is at smoke and mirrors.:scrutiny:

[sw442642]

Oh, you are that dude who was vaporized on Glock Talk when your agenda about Israel became clear. Now you have wandered over here. Just a matter of time. :mad:

[SGT109FA]

Why because I don't agree with you or others that Israel is so inocent in the Israeli- Palestine conflict. Sheeple who read just one newspaper or listen to one news article are so closed minded about the facts. NOT everyone in this country agrees Israel is the oppressed nation in this conflict. SO my suggestion to you is grow up, suck it up and debate the facts without insults or accusations. !:fire:

[sw442642]

IIRC, you started raving that the Jews owned America and started sending weird messages to folks and then you were sent away.

[seeker_two]

Why because I don't agree with you or others that Israel is so inocent in the Israeli- Palestine conflict...grow up!

No one said Israel was innocent....

...but they're on the right side. :)

[Duncan Idaho]

All I know is that Israel is far more restrained than I would ever be.

It's a free country, so all who wish to may rave, and cheer on the death-cult nuts and their cowardly murder-bombings. Me? I say give them the sacrament they desire. Give them senseless death by the frigging giga-ton. :fire: :fire: :fire: :fire: :fire: :fire:

[SGT109FA]

a giga-ton for one is a giga-ton for "all" no exceptions dear.;)

[Kaylee]

whoa whoa Whoa WHOA.

personal attacks are NOT how we argue things here. You want to argue Israeli politics, go right ahead. But keep it civil.


Now, I'm certain when I check back in on this thread tonight I won't see any more personal attacks, character assassination, and other debating techniques more suited to a schoolyard fight or Congressional campaign than to a political discussion at THR.

right?

-K

[agricola]

All I know is that Israel is far more restrained than I would ever be.

It's a free country, so all who wish to may rave, and cheer on the death-cult nuts and their cowardly murder-bombings. Me? I say give them the sacrament they desire. Give them senseless death by the frigging giga-ton.

Today on UK television they played an interview with an Iraqi man whose six children had been killed by a Coalition air raid during "Iraqi Freedom" in the town of Hillah. I imagine he feels much the same way as you do Duncan, and presume you would support his actions against those who he feels have destroyed his future.

[sw442642]

The illusory moral equivalency between the State of Israel and its enemies is laughable. Those who make that case are clearly not seeing the situation without a preset agenda.

We have seen these arguments on lists over and over. Israel is not without fault. Their flaws are consequences of years of atrocious attacks. If you don't understand that, then you are not a fair minded person.

The next claim will be to whine about being called an antisemite and then resort to wild personal insults.

Impress us with thoughts and not ranting.

[Duncan Idaho]

I imagine he feels much the same way as you do Duncan, and presume you would support his actions against those who he feels have destroyed his future.If he and his fellows hadn't let their country become a socialist rat-hole, they could have gone about the business of picking figs, chasing dung-beetles for supper, and choking on dust as he and his fellows - and their barbarian ancestors - have done for centuries. Sadly, he was caught in the middle of his country's receipt of its "just desserts".

Maybe he should spend the days that he has left working toward making something of his country; so that members of his extended family don't get caught up in the inevitable conflict(s) that will occur should he and his fellows decide that they positively must cling to a backward and barbaric, way of life.

If not, not. Should he choose action against me, and mine, I think that he would soon find himself reunited with his loved ones.

That would work just as well for me. His choice. It's well past high time that he - and his fellows - understand that.

I am long past having the patience to explain it to him/them. :rolleyes:

[2dogs]

I was happy to read that GW is likely to back off from the "roadmap" and that Abbas was told to disarm Hamas or else. Typical of the Palestinian cowards, he refused- he doesn't want to take on Hamas because they might kill HIM. Poor, iddy biddy baby.:rolleyes:

agricola

I saw on the news that your government wants to tax farmers for the methane gas produced by their cows- the farmers are protesting the "fart tax" (their term not mine). Very forward thinking place, merry olde.:D

[Standing Wolf]

All I know is that Israel is far more restrained than I would ever be.

Yep.

I'll stand with the little country that elects its government rather than the big countries that happen to be dictatorships, oligarchies, theocracies, and worse.

[rock jock]

Today on UK television they played an interview with an Iraqi man whose six children had been killed by a Coalition air raid during "Iraqi Freedom" in the town of Hillah. I imagine he feels much the same way as you do Duncan, and presume you would support his actions against those who he feels have destroyed his future.
Flawed analogy. We (and Israel for that matter) specifically target our enemy's military personnel. Collateral damage does occur, but very rarely when compared to the total number of missions we conduct. We take great pains to avoid it from happening and sincerely regret when it does. The filthy cockroach cowards who make up the PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, and Al Queda, OTOH, hide behind women and children and then seek to kill only the defenseless.

You may actually want to try some logic in your arguments for a change.

[matis]

(from the article)
The defeat of terror takes overwhelming force, and only Israel itself can provide it. Indeed, only Israel should.
__________________________________________________________




Alevei nor! (Yiddish for, "It should only be!"



I'm shocked! that an article this truthful was allowed in that socialist, politically correct rag, the los angeles times.


Yes, Bush IS apparently backing away from the Road Map (to Auschwitz). Eventually Israel will do what she must.

Although I love and support Israel, I now consider her government criminally negligent. For the sake of world opinion and American aid, she allows her citizens to be killed by savages -- without letup.

A governent that does not protect its citizens loses its right to govern.

But politicians are politicians, here, in Israel or anywhere.

For those who now found a new way to disguise their hatred of Jews:"Israel is an occupying power; the poor Palestinians want only a lifting of the oppression and a little country to live in" -- take the trouble to learn the history -- or admit your bias. After all, it's not against the law to hate (envy) Jews and you have tons of company.



The article writer is understandably bitter but he characterizes the Islamo Fascists accurately and the Arab culture, too.



Israel is only the frontlines; America, in spite of our war in Afghanistan and Iraq, is also playing it too politically correct. We will either crack down on our enemies or we will relinquish our way of life to them.


The Islamists say that first they will take care of Saturday (Jews), then they will finish off Sunday (Christians).


When will we wake up?



matis

[fallingblock]

That of fighting the islamofascists on their own turf rather than in our midst.:D

************************************************************
"Israel is only the frontlines; America, in spite of our war in Afghanistan and Iraq, is also playing it too politically correct. We will either crack down on our enemies or we will relinquish our way of life to them."
************************************************************

Let the Islamofantastists (they who live in the fantasy realm which justifies Islamic conquest by any means, any where, any time) fight us in their own realm...if they move in from the surrounding countries, their movement will create the 'target-rich' environment advantage for the defense of the west. :D

[SGT109FA]

Quote from Kaylee : whoa whoa Whoa WHOA.

personal attacks are NOT how we argue things here. You want to argue Israeli politics, go right ahead. But keep it civil.


Now, I'm certain when I check back in on this thread tonight I won't see any more personal attacks, character assassination, and other debating techniques more suited to a schoolyard fight or Congressional campaign than to a political discussion at THR.

right?

ABSOLUTELY ! Kaylee that is my intention a "civil" debate.

[SGT109FA]

Look, I'm not against Israel or its people. I understand their situation. BUT the Isreali government has to realize that the tit for tat has to end sometime. The Israeli government is who I'm against not its citizens. They go out and target terrorists which is fine and kill far too many Palestinian civilians without precautions and say its justified. Lets face it, the Pal. terrorists (hamas) are nuts and the look for every excuse to kill "any" jew in sight. Lets face it, you can't wipe out the Palestinian existance, the rest of the arab world won't help them, so why not just give them their land without building Jewish settlements within their areas. The more you back these people into a corner the more they will strike back. MAYBE just MAYBE if you help the "people" the people will give up and stop supporting the terrorist. The "people" will say ; Hey the Israelis are giving us a chance at a normal life and the Hamas is going to screw it up for us"

On the same thought the U.S has to keep its nose out of it so the arabs have no excuse to interfere as well. Besides do all you Americans want to keep pouring our tax dollars into this mess. NO we doing enough of that in Iraq and other countries. The more the U.S. keeps handing Israel a big stick to wave around the more it stirs up the arab world and the Hamas.

[matis]

SGT109FA said:
_________________________________________________________
so why not just give them their land without building Jewish settlements within their areas.
_________________________________________________________

Aside from the fact that what they really want is the annhilation of Israel -- it is NOT their land -- bother to study the history.




SGT109FA also said:
__________________________________________________________
MAYBE just MAYBE if you help the "people" the people will give up and stop supporting the terrorist. The "people" will say ; Hey the Israelis are giving us a chance at a normal life and the Hamas is going to screw it up for us"
__________________________________________________________

Very nice idea.

Except that Israel has been trying everything with the Arabs and the Palestinians since day one -- way before she even became a state. They always repaid her with hate and betrayal of their promises.

The Israeli government even tried to give them "Land for Peace", a sure prescription for Jewish suicide -- and they instead began Intefada 2.


The Palestinian "people" have little to say. For one thing the vast majority don't want peace; they want what Hitler wanted. And anyway, their "leaders" rule them by force. Each time one speaks out for peace he is murdered by his "brother" Arabs. They practise "honor killing" of their own daughters (even here in the States!), for g-d's sake!

Abbu Mazen is held up to us as a "moderate". But he was the finance officer for Arrafat going way back -- even to their killing of the Israeli athletes in the Olympics in Munich in '72. And he just recently wrote a book denying the holocaust. Truly moderate Arabs are dead Arabs.

The only Arabs who enjoy rights, who can vote and even serve in a real parliament (Knesset) are the ones who live in Israel. And yet the majority of Israeli Arabs also support the terrorism against Israel and many participate in the murders of Jewish Israelis!

Come down out of the clouds and LEARN THE HISTORY!


And "MAYBE just MAYBE" is fine for you to say with no stake in the matter and with your blood and that of your family not at risk in the fight.



Give back the USA to the Indians; give back the West to the Mexicans. AT least they really owned it at one time. Then tell Israel to try more "maybe just maybe's"



Like the Nazis and the Japanese in WWII, the Arab Islamofascists and the governments that support them (just about all) must be CRUSHED.



It is expected that the goyim (Hebrew for the (other) nations --gentiles) count Jewish blood as cheap. The Europeans, the British, pretty much the whole world have done that since the year 70 CE. The holocaust was just a more recent example.

But when Sharon and the Israeli gov't sells the blood of their citizens for the worthless coin of world opinion, then it seems hopeless.


My support goes to those elements in Israel who reject the secular, socialist values of the Israeli elites (gov't, judiciary, media, academia -- screwed up just like they are here in the States) and who rely instead on Torah to guide them.

One doesn't even have to "believe" to benefit. The rules about what is just and what isn't are what Western Civ is based on. And the Jews would never have survived this long, against all odds, without Torah.


Until Israel crushes her tormentors, there will be no "peace".


And it's a sure thing that these savages are coming after us, too. 9/11 was only a down payment. What do you think they teach in their mosques, even here in the States.


In a cell phone store the other day I overheard a young man obviously of Arab extraction tell a customer his name was Yassir. When she left I asked him, jokingly, if his last name was Arafat.

I didn't expect his answer. "UNFORTUNATELY, no", he said. I bit my tongue and let it go.


Wake up!



matis

[Chris Rhines]

On the article in question - I've been long since convinced that there are very few good guys in the whole Arab-Israel-Palestinian-whomever conflict. Quite frankly, I care little which side eventually wins as long as they leave me and mine alone.

That said, Israel is an independent nation-state last time I checked, so I wonder why I have to shovel out more tax dollars to defend them. If they want to play on the international scene, let them do it with their own money.

On Arabs - I find it difficult to take seriously the opinions of people who's bigotry is so outspoken, be they Israeli Jews, Arabic Muslims, or American Christians.

On collateral damage - nothing more than a fancy term for murder, and a fairly cynical one at that. If I pull out my pistol and empty a magazine at some threatening thug, and wipe out half the kindergarten playground down the street, then I've just committed murder, no matter what my justification for using deadly force in the first place. Same with nation-states.

The Israeli gov't has gotten particularly bad with this. I'm not going to shed many tears over some terrorist with bloody hands getting popped, but they could afford to be much smarter about it. A suppressed sniper rifle is the proper tool for the selective elimination of a terrorist. A helicopter gunship firing 2.75" Zunis is not.

Moral issues aside, killing noncombatants is bad strategy. What do you think the orphaned son of some dude who got blown up while sitting at the coffe shop playing backgammon is going to do when he grows up? What would you do if it was you?

One should try to avoid making too many enemies.

- Chris

[2dogs]

Abbas is gone.

The "roadmap" is done.

Now maybe the Israelis can go about winning peace the way every other country has- by totally defeating their enemy.

Good luck to them.:D

[Duncan Idaho]

a giga-ton for one is a giga-ton for "all" no exceptions dear. (sic)Only in the sense that if "all" can add, "all" would understand that a giga-ton can be delivered 500 lbs. at a time, or in any increment(s) available within the arsenal of weaponry in inventory. :rolleyes:

[SGT109FA]

Well I can see I agree to disagree with you all on this subject, but thats what makes this country so great to live in , the right to speak and debate freely. Sorry if I offended anyone, but as a 20 year combat veteran I have seen some of the mind boggling events that take place in the middle east. So regardless of anyones opinions we must all agree that no matter the events, its ashame that inocent folks suffer because of their governments.

[Baba Louie]

This area of interest has ALWAYS been a place of serious contention and I will die an old man before any resolution is at hand, I'm sure.

The United States has always been involved here once the Brits bailed and the UN's famous waffling (can't really blame them since the issue is so thorny) and I contend that due to the presence of so many jews in the US our presence will always be backing up Israel's side, much as France now backs the arab side (voters have no little influence in every politicians thinking/survival process)

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/israel/palestin.htm

An interesting timeline of the One American President who was forced into (by his own determination of what was right, consequences be hanged) action, knowing that, as he stated, "they can ALL go to he.."

And there they are. Arabs and Jews fighting for daily survival, living in a version of hades (in a manner of speaking), killing each other daily in a small portion of the middle eastern desert which has no oil but vast religious significance to three major religions.

Tribal conflict is never pretty. Throw God into the equation and lookout World.

Adios

[MeekandMild]

Not being at all as knowledgable nor as opiniated on this subject as everyone else in the world I have a totally off topic question. Since there seem to be so many experts gathered about dangling from this tiny thread I thought to ask:

From time to time I see a map of the former Soviet empire and 'way out in Siberia is a place called the Independant Jewish Republic or the Autonomous Jewish Republic or something of that nature. Is this REALLY a Jewish nation or is it just a highfalootin name like "The Commonwealth of Virginia"?

[matis]

Meekandmild said

Not being at all as knowledgable nor as opiniated on this subject...
__________________________________________________________

Since I AM adequately opinionated on this subject :D I'll take it upon myself to answer your question.
__________________________________________________________

Meekandmild asked:

From time to time I see a map of the former Soviet empire and 'way out in Siberia is a place called the Independant Jewish Republic or the Autonomous Jewish Republic or something of that nature. Is this REALLY a Jewish nation or is it just a highfalootin name like "The Commonwealth of Virginia"?
__________________________________________________________


This "independent" and "autonomous" Jewish Republic was Soviet double-speak to cover their continuation of the centuries-old Russian persecution of her Jews.

Another name for this area was Biribijahn (sp?) and was supposed to be an area set aside for the Jews to live in and enjoy untramelled their Jewish idendity and to be able to pass it on to their children (as it says in Torah and in the shema, the prayer repeated thrice daily by Jews who truly know who they are: "...and you shall teach it to your children....") -- sort of a substitute for Israel (then called Palestine).


This was peddled to the world to show the outside Jews and the world how "friendly" the Soviets were to the Jews.


Actually this area was as independent and autonomous as were the other Soviet-dominated and Soviet imprisoned "Republics" and it's independence and autonomy were enforced by Soviet tanks and by the KGB.

As you mentioned, the Soviets set aside an area in Siberia (!), the same frozen wasteland where they sent their other dissidents and political prisoners -- where they had situated the prison-camps of the Gulag.


Very few Jews were interested in Biribijahn, but it did serve as top-notch propaganda for use by left-wing and out-right Communist Jews in the West to point to in their fellow-travelling arguments for the Communist workers paradise. (Why there were and still are such Jews is a long but separate story.)


What was actually occuring in the Soviet Union was a brutal repression of Jews: not allowed to practise or teach their religion, not allowed to print books in -- or even teach -- Yiddish or Hebrew, almost all synagogues shut down, a few show-place synagogues, especially the big one in Moscow headed by a "Rabbi" in the pay of and under control by the KGB. The few Jews who attended were photographed and kept track of by the KGB.

And Stalin was busy purging Jews from their positions in the military, the government, industry, and Jewish writers, poet,s playwrights and artists.


He staged the infamous "doctors plot" where Jewish doctors were accused of planning to assassinate him (if only!) and many Jews were convicted in staged show-trials and executed or sent to Siberia.

And had Stalin not died in '53, he would have been able to carry out his planned exile of Jews to camps in Siberia where they would have been lucky to survive at all.

Jews managed to escape the worst of these perseccutions only by renouncing their Jewishness and living like the gentiles around them. The plan was to snuff out Jewish identity in one or a few generations. But even these Jews had the word "Jew" stamped on their internal passports, just in case.


And of course the Soviets armed the Arabs to the teeth and trained them and coached them in their "holy" Jihad against Israel.



If this :"Republic" was independent and autonomous, then I'm a (Jewish -- and I mean the monkey, too!) monkey's uncle.



matis

_____________

[Joe Demko]

That particular region of the world seemed an awful lot better behaved when the Ottoman Turks were running the show...
I'm with Chris Rhines on this one. I have no particular sympathies for either side and don't really give a hoot who ends up in control of that patch of desert. I just don't want to be compelled to finance the butchery.

[SGT109FA]

I just don't want to be compelled to finance the butchery.


Amen! ;)

[Duncan Idaho]

I just don't want to be compelled to finance the butchery.There is a simple solution to that. Stop paying taxes, and face whatever comes from it. Otherwise, you might at least acknowledge that you have been paying for "the butchery" from both sides all along.

You did know that Mr. Arrafat didn't make his billions off of his civil engineering skills, didn't you? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[SGT109FA]

Duncan...FYI Newsflash.........We don't pay taxes .......They take them...:rolleyes:

[Joe Demko]

Save the ham-fisted sarcasm, Mr. Idaho. You did note that I indicated I have no attachment to either side didn't you? From that, you should have easily been able to conclude that I don't enjoy being compelled to finance either side. Since you, quite clearly, have chosen a side, may I presume you are following your advice and are paying half your taxes?

[Duncan Idaho]

You did note that I indicated I have no attachment to either side didn't you?Yes. And I'm sure that you know how much credence I gave it. We don't pay taxes .......They take them...All of life is a choice. One can choose not to pay taxes.

[SGT109FA]

All of life is a choice. One can choose not to pay taxes.

I'm not that class of low rent welfare mongroling American. I let them tax me so I can watch the government mismanage it. Lets get back to the topic at hand shalll we.:rolleyes:

[Duncan Idaho]

Lets get back to the topic at hand shalll we.LMAO

[MeekandMild]

matis

Thanks. That explains a lot. Governments, especially totalitarian governments seem to spend a lot of energy on propaganda.

[bountyhunter]

The problem is, the "eye for an eye" mentality eventually leaves everyone blind both literally and spiritually. My personal opinion is that Yassar Arafat is a lying twerp and the Palestinians are a bunch of whiners who are basically homeless because they have been run out of every country they ever tried to squat in. That said, any path that actually leads to peace will require Israel to find a way to live with them. And most of all, it will require the US to take a hard line with all parties and cut off all aid to anybody who practices terrorism... either the small scale variety of suicide bombers or the large scale variety of gunships followed by bulldozers followed by new Israeli housing. Death is death, and the families feel the same pain regardless of the side.

[sw442642]

The conflict would end if the Palestinians and supporting Islamic groups would simply stop the terror along with abandoning their goal of destroying Israel.

The refusal of some of you to see the asymmetry in motives is rather astounding. It is not two groups of equal motives. I firmly believe that those who don't see this are deliberately wearing blinders.

If the terror stopping the West Bank could be an independent state rather quickly. The Israelis radicals would be swamped by the many folks wanting peace. The ball is in the Palestinian court to accept the West Bank as a state, drop the right of return and stop the terror against civilians. Then they get the state.

Why don't some of you understand that? :banghead:

[matis]

MeekandMild,


You're welcome, Sir.




matis

[Joe Demko]

Yes. And I'm sure that you know how much credence I gave it.

There is a presumption of honesty on boards such as this. Rather than presume that you are such a churl as to be calling me a liar, I will simply bid you good day, sirrah, and invite you to say such a thing to my face (should we ever meet). We'll see how things shake out then.

[Duncan Idaho]

ROTFLMAO

[Joe Demko]

ROTFLMAO

You neglected to tell us what percentage of your taxes you choose not to pay in order to not finance the Palestinians. Please post that information, otherwise one might be forced to conclude that you are a hypocrite in addition to a mannerless oaf.

[Duncan Idaho]

Please post that information, otherwise one might be forced to conclude that you are a hypocrite in addition to a mannerless oaf.Flattery will get you nowhere, darlin'. :p

[Joe Demko]

Flattery will get you nowhere, darlin'.

In other words, you duly pay up the full weight and measure the IRS demands. I thought so.

[Kaylee]

We're done.
Y'all know why.

-K