Can Bush Save Arafat?

[michaello]

If you have an idea that relates, give it a go ...

- Michaello

[Ugg]

I think the question should state, Does Bush want to save Arafat? My answer is no. gw & co. have made it perfectly clear that Arafat is persona non grata and they are very upset that Europe has been meeting with him.

Personally, I think Sharon and Arafat should be locked in the same prison cell and the key should be thrown away. Neither of them is interested in peace only their own personal power. It is pathetic to watch two such hideous men do everything to ensure that peace will never come to the middle east.

[mcrain]

Oh, I don't know. I don't think Sharon is completetly illogical in his actions in response to the attitudes of the Palestinians.

If the Palestinians had a country, and that country was attacking Isreal in the way that the Palestinians do, no one would say they were unjustified in what they are doing.

The thing I try to keep in mind is that the Palestinians have been in a state of constant war with Isreal, ever since Isreal was created.

Never has the Arab world accepted Isreal or given it any sense that it was safe within its own borders. In fact, they have done everything in their power to make sure they aren't safe.

Michael Moore suggested in his book Stupid White Men that the way for the Palestinians to achieve peace and get a country is to practice non-violent resistance. The flip side to that though is that when they do not do that, and they do bomb civilians and issue rhetoric that says things like there shall be no Isreal, then honestly, how can Isreal treat them as equals? How can Isreal take the leap of faith that giving them what they say they want will make their hatred of the Jews end?

Isreal could pack up its tent, give the Arabs all of Isreal, and move to South America, and the Arabs would still hate them. At least, it certainly seems like they would.

[mactastic]

I think an even bigger problem is that a Palestinian state, particularly a divided one, is not going to be an economically viable entity. Unfortunately, a two-state solution is the only politically viable outcome, but can a Palestinian state that small survive economically?

More on topic though, here's (http://msnbc.com/news/966819.asp?0cv=CB20) an interesting article that talks about the reasons why Isreal might want to off Arafat.

ISRAEL ON MONDAY already was moving to soften the impression left by a deputy prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who asserted that “killing (him) is definitely one of the options.” Israel’s foreign minister assured the world on Monday that killing Arafat is not official Israeli government policy. But “removing” Arafat to exile is now official policy, and if the Palestinian leader somehow got killed in the process, it is probably fair to say few in the current Israeli government would mourn his passing.

Indeed, Olmert’s frankness in discussing the possible assassination of Arafat may suggest that Israel’s current government has now embraced a theory that has been around for years in Israeli security and political circles: Nothing short of a Palestinian civil war can forge the kind of government there that can make deliverable promises to Israel on security and other issues.

“You remove Arafat from the picture, and you change everything,” says a veteran American diplomat who requested anonymity. “Will he be a martyr? Of course. But the more important question for the Israelis is ‘who replaces him?’ It would be a free-for-all, and Israel would be in a good position to influence the outcome.”

For many years, Israel regarded with fear the prospect of a civil war among the Palestinians. Past Israeli governments have resorted to “divide and conquer” tactics in the past — most notably during the first Intifada, when Israeli security forces actually promoted Hamas as an alternative to the man regarded as the main enemy of the day, Yasser Arafat. But fear of unleashing a chaotic power struggle among a population of that lives cheek-and-jowl with Jewish settlers, particularly on the West Bank, has checked Israel’s hand.
The bitterness between Sharon and Arafat, of course, goes back far beyond 1996. Most famously, the two squared off in Lebanon in 1982, when as an Israeli general Sharon led an invasion aimed at destroying the bases of Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization. French and American Marines intervened before that could be accomplished, and Arafat ultimately fled to exile in Tunisia. Sharon, speaking to an Israeli interviewer last year, said Israel had its chance to kill Arafat then. An Israeli sniper, he said, had Arafat in his sights as the PLO chairman boarded a ship for Tunis. But Israel already had pledged to the Reagan administration that Arafat would be given safe passage. “Actually, I am sorry that we did not liquidate him,” Sharon said last year. This year, the question is back on the table.

[Desertrat]

I gotta give that ugly piece of trash credit for one thing: He has proven himself the world's most skill manipulator at playing both ends against the middle, faking out the west as he's kept his murderous terrorists busy killing Jews while talking of his desire for peace.

Doubt me? Think of the date of the origin of the charter of the PLO and the "Palestinian State", and then look at how long it took before the clause about killing all the Jews was removed. For all practical purposes, that's really "Arafat's Charter".

'Rat

[mactastic]

:D At first I wasn't sure which ugly piece of trash you were refering to.

[michaello]

Cool - I guess this thread doesn't suck, afterall.

In the news today:

"UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The United States vetoed a U.N. resolution Tuesday that would have demanded Israel halt threats to expel Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Eleven Security Council members voted for the resolution and three members abstained. The U.S. veto killed the resolution.

In the Middle East, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said: "This is a sad day for the United Nations. I hope the U.S. veto will not be interpreted by Israel as a license to kill Yasser Arafat."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/09/16/mideast/index.html

[Desertrat]

Well, actually those Israelis are sneaky. Look how they lured all those Arab Boy Scouts into getting lost while merely on innocent hikes and field trips, back in 1967 and 1973.

And putting all those civilians in the paths of guys just doing their daily work of carrying some high explosives around--and then claiming evil intent when the explosives accidentally exploded.

You just can't trust those Israelis...

'Rat