"Israeli President" is the greatest unintentionally revealing typo of all time.

NO STATE for a culture of savage terrorists.

normally your kind of bigotry wouldn't be worth the time, but i can't help but point out your narrow minded ignorance, then I thought...well maybe he meant Israel, or the US, or the UK...I shouldn't jump to the narrow minded conclusion that he must have been pointing at Palestine. He might have meant all nation states.

Who do you mean, o great knuckle dragger...who do you mean?

Abu Mazen is a good guy, well meaning and the people around him, including those who constitute his new government are precisely those with whom Israel can and must make a peace agreement.

Please.....

Dahlan is a thug, and a corrupt one at that, who took his marching orders from Elliot Abrams (not Abbas) to deny Hamas any say in the government even though it was freely elected (democracy Condi-style, I guess).

If Gaza is Mogadishu, it's because of the US and Israel (in this case, more the US since Israel was reluctant to play along) and quislings like Dahlan. If the crazies of Hamas are now in charge, it's because Abbas surrounded himself with corrupt goons (heard about the gold-plated faucets?) congenitally incapable of standing up for their people.

So, no! The people around Abbas were hardly "those with whom Israel can and must make a peace agreement."

Hamas is not the answer. But to leonize Fatah is truly the best way to completely misread the situation.

So it is illegal to dump Hamas according to them?
Maybe, just maybe, it is illegal to kill your partners in government and take over their headquarters and property?

If you do not abide by the rule of law and resort to lynch law, why do you expect that it should be applied to you? I rather doubt in the first place that any state is required to find a place in government for those attacking it.

Hamas got 44% of the popular vote but more of the Paliament because Fatah candidates split the vote.

Thousands are even more at risk becauuse Hamas decided to crush Fatah in Gaza and this is expected to increase support for Hamas.

Must have lost the rest of text on the edit--maybe it will return.

"The reality is that the only people who are really behind Salam Fayyad are the European and US diplomats who have long sung his praises behind the scenes to any journalist prepared to listen. So yesterday President Bush and the other members of the Quartet got what they wanted. Abbas trooped dutifully in to see the US consul-general in Jerusalem with Mohammed Dahlan, the man widely credited with beginning the cycle of violence in Gaza, in tow. And when they emerged, the boycott of US monies to the Palestinian government had been lifted.

It is hard not to be cynical. Palestinian society was squeezed until it hurt - punished as a whole for voting for the wrong party. And when the inevitable explosion occurred last week, Abbas finally fired Hamas, as the US has been encouraging him to do amid his months of dithering.

So which was the real coup? Hamas's bloody attack on the violent gangsters allied to Fatah who have terrorised Gaza for a year? Or Abbas's unconstitutional moves yesterday with America's backing?

Either way, once again it is Palestinians who will suffer."

I'm glad that you are happy with the progress Palestinians are making.

J. McCutchen

But how will they stop the money from getting to Hamas???

ID cards?

Israel have a mandate from majority of voters in Israel to destroy Hamas,
Hamas maybe has a mandate from voters and from God to destroy Israel.
So what ?

Gaza was independent before the recent wilding; it was also a basket case and will continue to be one even after peace will be achieved.

You cannot give money to an entity that declares that it intends to destroy its opposition. Hamas overtaking of Gaza validates the strength of their destructive force. It has little to do with Israel or the US and more to do with Iran and Islamic fundamentalism.

Pinning the blame for recent events on anyone other than the Palestinians themselves is blaming the Czech for WWII; after all, if you gave Hitler what he wanted ...

To Seth Edenbaum: What makes you think it is an either/or? I don't agree with your beliefs about Israel and the US but even so it should be clear by now that Hamas is a bad actor even in terms of their fellow Palestinians.

Palestinian stupidity is rampant and has been adopted by some in this country: I have seen letters wailing that the Palestinians are shut out from the Israeli economy.

If you send your young men as suicide bombers to murder civilians, what is the likelihood that you will be allowed free access to that nation's factories?

So humiliating that the Palestinians are searched at checkpoints.

Revenge has consequences.

What the Palestinians are suffering from is blowback from their own actions.

If the Palestinians had opted to compete by constructiing a modern nation, they would have had a chance. In the past land was the only thing that could bring prosperity. What brings prosperity now is the skill of your people. Teaching science has far more payoffs than teaching your people how to construct suicide belts.

Instead they opted to stand on their honor and and allow the Arab countries to encourage them to fight to the last Palestinian. Several generations have been lost to the desire to drive Israel into the sea.

What is humiliating for the Palestinians is not that Israel exists but their stupidity in coping with the fact that Jews have moved into their neighborhood.

AJM - I don't know if you know any settlers or Likud members but I can assure you if the Palestinians had put all their guns in a bonfire they would have been run over by the settlers and pushed into the towns and over the border into Jordan.

The settlers in the West Bank are a law unto themselves and the Israeli government is not going to move them for any peace agreement. I know these people intimately - as of last week 37 of my relatives live in the settlements. I have listened to Kadima Knesset members tell them don't worry we'll figure out a way to keep you here no matter what. Be careful of public announcements on both sides - they are for public consumption only. Real agendas are hidden and will only become apparent in REAL peace negotiations.

Amazing how much sympthy you have for the childishness of the powerful, who were once weak.
"What the Palestinians are suffering from is blowback from their own actions."
What actions? Being driven into the desert?
"What is humiliating for the Palestinians is not that Israel exists but their stupidity in coping with the fact that Jews have moved into their neighborhood"
No, Jews have moved into their house.
And we're told they by the grand poobahs on this site that they had a right to do.

70 percent cited the need to be "a leader in working for peace" as heading the list of 13 qualities required of an American "ally." But only 16 percent saw this among Israel's traits.
A poll commissioned in April by The Israel Project indicates that the "opinion elite" in the United States has warm feelings for Israel but is not convinced Israel wants peace.
The survey's results are being published here for the first time.
TIP, an organization that strives to improve Israel's image in America and the rest of the world, polled 500 representatives of the "opinion elite": college graduates with annual incomes above $75,000, who vote in elections, and read newspapers and magazines.
They were asked, among other things, to rank their attitude toward Israel and Hamas, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah, on a scale of 1 to 100, with below 50 indicating a "cold" attitude and above it a "warm" attitude. Israel received a 66, while the others scored between 19 (Hezbollah) and 30 (Syria).
"Who is to blame for the instability in the Middle East?" the poll asked. Seventy-three percent blamed "Islamic extremism" and only 12 percent named "Israel and its policies."

Dan Tanna's comment uprated by me because Valdron's zeroing of it is a childish act of censorship.

See the ratings guidelines.--there's nothing in it deserving of a zero. Indeed, though I myself don't happen to agree with the opinion, it is voiced in a manner far better than many comments on this topic that I do agree with. Wish that all who have similar passion(s) on this topic could exercise his restraint here. Yes, we've all heard it before, so it's "average," but we'd be blessed if everyone who feels the need to express the same old opinions on this topic (all too common) decided to do it in such a manner.

Would substituting Jew for Hamas or Hilter be anything that a lie? Whether Dan was over the top he was closer to being correct that the usual diatribes about Israel.

It is a major joke that correctly Arabs are slaughtering each other in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine and the whining is about Israel and those who defend it?

American Jews paid to preserve the Gazan greenhouses and the Palestinians first act was to destroy them. Arabs could establish a better live for themselves with or without a deal with Israel. To say that there is a deep pathology in the Arab Islamic world is not racism it is a sad truth. It is a shame that those who proclaim their support of Arabs seem to believe that the Arabs are incapable of helping themselves without America or Israel. That is true racism.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I view it as one of the most ambitious social engineering in history: isolate Palestinians from most of the world, and limit their interaction mostly to religious nuts whose main occupations are (a) making children, (b) picking fights.

Wait twenty years. Check if any influence can be discerned.

I gather that Valdron has a soft spot in your heart for Likud, and he thinks that it is absurd to regard them as "terrorist appeasers" perpetrating "the biggest scam in history".

Well, I'll admit that it did grind my gears.

In denouncing 'land for peace' as the greatest scam in history, by terrorist appeasers, Dan Tanna is explicitly condemning Likud, and he's explicitly condemning as a failure the Egyptian/Israeli peace accords.

The only problem is that the Egyptian-Israeli peace is a success. That it has produced peacable relations between Egypt and Israel for the last thirty years. That without Egypt, Arab nations are incapable of a coherent military assault on Israel, which does more to guarantee Israel's security than all the secret nukes in Dimona.

But Dan Tanna doesn't acknowledge any of this. In his mind, Israel is surrounded by implacable enemies. Camp David 1976 is only a ruse by Israel's enemies, enemies who are in Washington, in Cairo, in Tel Aviv.

Tanna occupies a world view that acknowledges no progression of history, but rather amounts to an incoherent stew swirling around and around, with the choice bits bubbling to the top. Events do not come in order, but rather, in his mind Events are categorized by his prejudices, disconnected fragments eternally proving his case.

"Land for peace" is a great scam, an Egyptian trick, a national disaster for Israel.

Thirty years of peace? That's ephemeral and irrelevant.

In Tanna's world, Israel is all but omnipotent, morally superior to its adversaries, militarily unbeatable, unstoppable and virtuous in every respect. That's why he has to mention 'five wars' to emphasize Israel's overwhelming superiority.

But of course, if Israel is ultimate virtue, then it can do no wrong. Therefore the plight of Palestinians must be self inflicted. Obviously, Israel could not reat them badly, therefore, they must have done it to themselves, or the other arabs must be to blame.

The other side of the coin is that despite Israel's near omnipotence, it is also weak and helpless, constantly on the edge of ruin.

It's enemies are superhuman and implacable, dedicating generation upon generation to the absolute destruction of Israel. Hamas cannot be reasoned with, cannot be negotiated with. Hamas, and by extension, any Palestinian, can have only one goal... destroy Israel. Every other act, from going to the bathroom to picking out a shirt, is in service to that goal.

The Palestinians are so committed to the destruction of Israel that they will do anything, including killing other Palestinians, in order to further that goal. The killing of Palestinians, internal strife and struggles, are all just a part of that master plan to destroy Israel.

And in fact, they may succeed. Although patently subhuman, they ceaselessly gnaw at the roots of Israel, and they're assisted by collaborators of all sorts. Quisling Israeli's who are delusional or animated by secret hatred. Europeans, Americans. Enemies abound, Israel exists in a sea of adversity, constantly in danger of being overwhelmed. Only eternal vigilance prevents the disaster which is always only a heartbeat away.

Those who believe anything else, those who subscribe to any other view, are worse than wrong. They're worse than irrational. They are literally sub-human themselves. They are effeminate 'sissy-men', hiding behind women and children, their cowardice and impotence drawing Israel into danger, in their own way as much of a menace.

Yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before. We heard it in the 1930's at Torchlight rallies in Berlin. We heard it in the 60's as Strom Thurmond lead the Dixiecrats and railed against the threat of niggers in our swimming pools. We heard it in the taped right wing Militia messages that Timothy McVeigh, fueled by drugs and coffee, listened to on the way to Oklahoma. We heard it in Bosnia, and we heard it in Cambodia in the sing song tones of the Khmer Rouge, and we heard it in Rwanda as radio disk jockeys passed out machetes. We hear it from raving schizophrenics spewing spittle from streetcorners, maddened by their inability to bring genocide to the masses. And we hear it from so called Zionists as they lay the emotional and inflammatory ground to justify their final solution.

We hear it, and we hear it, and we hear it over and over again.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the Dan Tanna screeds. I'm sick of enablers like Artappraiser who work so hard to legitimize this sick filth as worthy discussion, even though deep down, they know where it leads.

Yes. It should have been "Israeli Puppet." It is amazing how quickly Abbas moved to form a new government sans Hamas. In fact, we have been pushing him to oust Hamas since they were elected, but pressure was stepped up after the unity government was formed. Hamas struck pre-emptively before Dahlan's forces could receive enough arms to destroy them.

Reuters-UK Edward Abington, Abbas's long-time adviser and Washington lobbyist...recounted a meeting as long ago as July last year at which "(Abbas) said to me that the Americans were urging him to kick out the government, to form an emergency government. He refused to do it because it would lead to civil war. (Abbas) did not want to get into a confrontation," said Abington. But in the end, he said, "it was forced on him."

Western officials said Abbas was able to move swiftly this week to form a new government because much of the advance work had already been done. In one closed-door briefing with U.S. lawmakers earlier this year, a senior U.S. official said Abbas could rule by decree for 6-12 months before elections are held.

On Sunday, faced with a constitutional article demanding any new government be approved by parliament, where Hamas has a majority, Abbas simply issued a decree scrapping that provision.

This was just an old-school U.S./Israeli-backed coup.

J. McCutchen

Islamofascism is on the march from the Hindu Kush to the Atlantic.....

Ain't Allah great!

What I find interesting in the endless conversation/argument about Arab-Israeli relations is that it almost never seems to mention the "average person". By this I mean there are copious amounts of vitriol and rhetoric about governments, religions and politics but there is rarely ever any thought or conversation regarding the average person and their lives. People are generalized and lumped into one collective group of good or bad guys (depending on the individual's perspective).

I find this disturbing and immensely harmful in terms of achieving any progress towards peace and prosperity for anyone in the region. Not all Israelis hate all Arabs. Not all Arabs hate all Israelis. Let's face the reality that "leaders" very rarely offer a convincing representation of "the people". For example, all American's can not be defined by George Bush and Dick Cheney. Perhaps more can be than I'm comfortable with but it is unfair to categorize all based on a few. And it is disastrous to base policies or other actions solely on the opinions or desires of those disproportionate and unrepresentative groups. And this holds true for all nations and people.

I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people in this world want the same things. They want to make a living, be able to afford a meager home and to raise a family in peace. They may have differing cultures and religions but at the end of the day, the large majority of the masses simply want to live in peace. And the rigors of daily survival do not afford them the luxury of worrying about such mundane things like politics and the like. I think the biggest mistake made in this ongoing war of ideologues is the exclusion of this apparent truth. I may be a bit naive but I'd be willing to bet that if the collective "we" could all get over this particular hurdle then there could be improvement in the region for the benefit of all in a very short time. But if you only allow the most extreme examples and representatives to color the conversation and you exclude those that matter most then how in the world can a solution ever be attained? Is this fight about making a better place for the politicians and self-proclaimed leaders or for the excluded masses of "the people"?

What we all should be doing is attacking those INDIVIDUALS and GROUPS that feed the fires of ignorance and hatred on BOTH sides of this ongoing struggle while at the same time recognizing the plight of it's many many victims. It's time to begin letting the cooler heads prevail...in fact it's long overdue.

Yeah but what newspapers and magazines are they reading...? The papers, tv news and even academics are censored in the US, so the figure doesn't surprise me...

Now, in the UK it's a whole other story. Over there, there are actual colleges that are fighting for balanced news and freedom of political discourse... A real battle is on, as the muzzlers are out in full force...

"Hamas is no more demons than Irgun and the Stern Gang were"

I don't think so. Hamas is two order of magnitude of demonism compare Irgun and the Stern Gang .
But why argue ?
Israel should have talk to Hamas behind the scene while continue applying presure on Hamas.

Great, If Hamas doesn't want to build Singapure in Gaza, let's build Singapure in West Bank.
I know some people hate idea that Palestinians abandom struggle against evil Isrtael and stop sending their kids to blow themselves in Israel, and instead start building decent future.
Too bad.

Deleted repeat post.

finally

To Valdron at June 18, 12:26 pm:

Your point about the successful 30 years of peace with Egypt is well taken but it did depend on the actions of an Egyptian leader who abandoned the Hamas type goals.

If you announce that you intend to exterminate your enemies, on what basis do you complain if they believe you and act on that basis?

You spent a lot of time comparing Don Tannen to a Facist (I've only found the excerpt not his originial post) but what if for Hamas you substitute National Socialist Party?

My earlier point about blowback was on several levels: the one I illustrated was about economic integration: you don't get jobs if you are bombing your employers' children. In the larger context, if you argue give me a viable country so I can attack you, you are going to get a really humongous amount of foot dragging.

Land is no longer the basis for prosperity: knowledge is. There is room for both peoples in the Mideast.

Pointing out that if the Muslim community had supported the Palestinians the way the Israelis were supported, the Palestinians might very well have their own Singapore is the reverse of racist. Criticism of dumb actions assumes that people can do better: saying they are poor humiliated agrieved Palestinians and we can't expect good behavior from them, not even to each other is racist.

If grievance entitles bad behavior, what are the Jews entitled to do?

The post you can't find is here:

On June 18, 2007 - 4:22am Dan Tanna said: spewspewspew...

Nah, I didn't compare Dan Tannen to a fascist. If I left that impression, please accept my apologies. My intention was to describe his post as raving fucking lunacy worth no more than the average schizophrenic ranting. Tannen employs the word salad tactics, the reliance on buzzwords, and the paranoid helpless/omnipotent worldview that's common to hysterics and political extremists. It's only when you give those types a little bit of attention and a little bit of power that the bodies start to pile up. I don't intend to offer up Tannen's post even a little bit of respect, and I don't recommend that you do so either.

Your point about the successful 30 years of peace with Egypt is well taken but it did depend on the actions of an Egyptian leader who abandoned the Hamas type goals.

You mean the same guy that launched the 1973 Yom Kippur War? That guy? Mister sneak attack? And who was the guy who he made peace with? Wasn't that a former button man for the Stern Gang?

So... Warmonger and Terrorist managed to put on shiny duds and sit down at a table to make peace. Funny how that happens, isn't it.

If you announce that you intend to exterminate your enemies, on what basis do you complain if they believe you and act on that basis?

Nikita Kruschev pounded the UN podium with a shoe and announced to the west "We will bury you."

I think everyone took that pretty seriously. Yet the nukes didn't fly, world war three didn't happen. Rather, two mutually antagonistic societies spent the next 30 or 40 years learning to coexist, and even thaw.

The world is full of assholes who talk tough. America is full of assholes who talk trash. But the fact that some asshole talks trash at you on the street does not entitle you, morally or legally, to bust a cap in his ass.

Are you getting what I'm saying, or do I have to draw pictures?

Land is no longer the basis for prosperity: knowledge is.

Bullshit.

There is room for both peoples in the Mideast.

True.

Pointing out that if the Muslim community had supported the Palestinians the way the Israelis were supported, the Palestinians might very well have their own Singapore is the reverse of racist.

If by this you mean fatuous and stupid on many different levels, I agree with you.

It's about as meaningful as saying that if everyone had a chocolate suppository, then the sewers would smell sweet.

If grievance entitles bad behavior, what are the Jews entitled to do?

Prey upon a weeker people, steal their land, drive hundreds of thousands or millions into permanent refugee camps, massacre your neighbors villages, conduct covert assassinations at will, develop nuclear weapons and hold millions of people in a state of subhuman bondage, and seek or advocate the pre-emptive destruction of neighboring countries on the basis that they may someday be a bother?

Sorry. Don't buy it.

It seems to me that those who are victimized by injustice should have a taste for justice for all.

If the only lesson they take from it is to get their licks in first and hard, well, that may work for them, but it don't earn my respect.

In the end, this is the only world we got, and we need to learn to get along.

Oh, and we need to learn to spell 'Singapore' properly.

deleted

The Short Attention Span factor is in play. As is the old adage: "Be careful what you wish for, it may come true". It was not that long ago that Ariel Sharon called Arafat and Fatah terrorist supporters. Israel worked hard to oust Arafat from power, and gutted the Palestinian security forces, which were almost entirely members of Fatah. Hamas won the Palestinian election fairly and openly. The election was belittled in the West, Palestinian funding was cut off. Hamas' elected leadership should have been co-opted; forced to be politicians responsible for the day to day operations under their control. If they had been made responsible for the streetlights, the sewers and the garbage pick-ups, there would have been little time to plot anything else. In the meantime, they would become addicted to being politicians, caring for little else, other than their re-election; learning to be fat and complacent. Instead, they have been given a believable cause for ALL of the Palestinians' woes: Israel/US policy, and are not held accountable because of it.

Israel now actively supports the loser in the democratic process, Fatah, but this was not the case a few years ago.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared an unfettered war Monday on terrorism, which he blamed directly on Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, as Israeli fighter jets and helicopters pounded targets in Palestinian cities and towns.

Amid a raging government debate over whether to oust Arafat from power and expel him from the region, Sharon's Cabinet early today pronounced the Palestinian Authority a "terror-supporting entity," setting the stage for further retaliation. Army troops and tanks thrust deep into several Palestinian cities overnight, advancing in the West Bank city of Ramallah to within half a mile of Arafat's headquarters, where the Palestinian president was spending the night.
[. . .]
...the Israeli government's strategy is to repeatedly attack the symbols of Arafat's leadership to further weaken him and create the conditions in which he could lose power, analysts said.

"It is not in our interests to do it [remove Arafat] ourselves," said Eran Lehrman, a recently retired military intelligence officer. "Our interest is to bring more Palestinians to the conclusion that Arafat has betrayed their needs and wishes. So that they make him irrelevant."

Tracy Wilkinson, "Israel Blames Terror Wave on Arafat and Strikes Back", Los Angeles Times, December 4 2001 - (LA Times paid archive link)

I wonder what Eran Lehrman presently claims is in Israel's best interests. Eran should be careful what he wishes for. Arafat had been placed in an unwinable situation by Israel:

When he (Arafat) announced a ceasefire after 11 September, there was a marked drop in violence for several weeks, not least because he forged an unwritten agreement with Hamas that there would be no suicide attacks inside Israel.

A lull in the intifada fell apart after Israeli forces assassinated Hamas's military leader in the West Bank, Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, 10 days ago. It raised grave questions about Israel's strategy; it is inconceivable the security forces who commissioned it did not know how Hamas would respond.

"This was a near-certain reaction," said a Western diplomat of the latest bombings. "This was totally taken into account by the people who ordered the assassination. The choice given to Arafat by Israel and the US is either to face civil war with the paramilitaries or total war, and obliteration, at the hands of the Israelis."

Phil Reeves, "Arafat faces angry demands for a crackdown on Islamic extremists", The Independent, December 3, 2001

The Israeli incursion continued for many months. During that time, the Bush Administration seemed frozen like a deer staring at the headlights. Internally, this was because of a policy battle being waged. The New York Times offered a bit of insight in May, 2002:

An intense debate among President Bush and his top advisers over whether to press for the removal of Yasir Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian Authority has effectively frozen the nation's Middle East policy, according to some administration officials.
[. . .]
Mr. Bush is described as being inclined to work with Mr. Arafat, in collaboration with moderate Arab leaders who put pressure on him to make changes. But Mr. Bush has repeatedly spoken of Mr. Arafat's need to fulfill the expectations of Western and moderate Arab leaders.

On Tuesday, before leaving on his trip, Mr. Bush spoke with a number of European reporters and said that Mr. Arafat had "had chance after chance, and by failing to lead, he has really let the Palestinians down." Later he said, "Somebody said, `Has he earned your respect?' I said, `He never had my respect, because he let his people down.' "

The debate in the Bush administration has divided along familiar lines, officials said, with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney pressing for a policy that would undermine Mr. Arafat's control over the Palestinian Authority and pave the way for a change in leadership.

Secretary Powell and Mr. Tenet are said to argue that there is no alternative to Mr. Arafat. They advocate keeping him under pressure to deliver on his pledges of change. According to this view, political and economic reconstruction of the Palestinian Authority would set the stage for statehood and the gradual transition to broader leadership.

Patrick E. Tyler, "Debate on Arafat Stalls U.S. Policy, Aides to Bush Say", New York times, May 26, 2002 - (Times Select paid archive link)

This strikes a familiar discordant note. Fast forward to when after the Plaestinian elections, Hamas had been elected into authority, and one finds Mr. Bush, not ardently advocating a support for Democratic processess, but instead, openly working at subverting them:

President Bush is asking Congress to provide $83 million for security forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, as the U.S. tries bolstering him for prospective peacemaking with Israel.

Bush has told Congress he would like Abbas' forces to receive the aid, which would be for training, uniforms, vehicles and other support, a senior U.S. official said Friday. The amount could be increased a few million, said the official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to make announcements.
[. . .]
The administration wants to make sure the U.S. assistance does not fall into the hands of Hamas, the radical group that now runs most of the Palestinian government and is vying with Abbas for overall control. The United States is boycotting Hamas, which it considers a sponsor of terror against Israel.

Hamas reacted angrily. Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, "The American funding is not based on supporting populations or governments but on supporting an American project to divide populations. ... This is an American policy based on terrorism and dividing and ruling."

Barry Schweid, AP Diplomatic Writer, "Bush asking Congress for $83M for Abbas", Associated press, January 5, 2007

The claim that Hamas was still a terrorist organisation was not born out of the facts in their first year of ruling though. The 2006 statistics published by the Israel based Palestinian Human rights group, B'Tselem December 26, 2006, indicated that violent acts by Palestinians had decreased during Hamas' short-tenure as Palestinian political leaders:

Casualties (figures in parenthesis indicate the total figure since the beginning of the intifada)

According to B'Tselem's research, from January to December 27, 2006, Israeli security forces killed 660 (4005) Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in Israel . This includes 141 (811) minors. At least 322 (1920) of those killed did not take part in the hostilities at the time they were killed. Another 22 (210) were targets of assassinations. In the Gaza Strip alone, since the capture of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, Israeli forces killed 405 Palestinians, including 88 minors. Of these, 205 did not participate in the fighting when killed.

Palestinians killed 17 (701) Israeli civilians in 2006, both in the West Bank and inside Israel . This includes 1 (119) minor. In addition, Palestinians killed 6 (316) members of the Israeli security forces.

The US and Israel had been successful in convincing the Palestinians that Fatah was corrupt and ineffective, but were horrified by the result of their actions, and hypocritical in their response. A nasty choice between evils was presented to the Palestinians, and they chose. An op/ed by UCLA English and comparative literature Professor, Saree Makdisi, and published in today's LA Times explains why they chose Hamas over Fatah:

There is a reason the people threw out Abbas' Fatah party in last year's election. Palestinians see the leading Fatah politicians as unimaginative, self-serving and corrupt, satisfied with the emoluments of power.

Worse yet, Palestinians came to realize that the so-called peace process championed by Abbas (and by Yasser Arafat before him) had led to the permanent institutionalization - rather than the termination - of Israel's 4-decade-old military occupation of their land. Why should they feel otherwise? There are today twice as many settlers in the occupied territories as there were when Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat first shook hands in the White House Rose Garden. Israel has divided the West Bank into besieged cantons, worked diligently to increase the number of Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem (while stripping Palestinian Jerusalemites of their residency rights in the city) and turned Gaza into a virtual prison.

People voted for Hamas last year not because they approved of the party's sloganeering, not because they wanted to live in an Islamic state, not because they support attacks on Israeli civilians, but because Hamas was untainted by Fatah's complacency and corruption, untainted by its willingness to continue pandering to Israel. Fatah leaders were viewed as mere policemen of the perpetual occupation, and the Palestinian Authority had willingly taken on the role of administering the population on behalf of the Israelis. Hamas offered an alternative.

Saree Makdisi "West chooses Fatah, but Palestinians don't", Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2007

Be careful what you wish for.

It would be a lot easier for Palestinians to build their own state if Israel wasn't constantly taking over the best land for settlements and military uses and destroying Palestinian economic resources.

'Profesiional Histrians R Us', post-gratuatee program. It's on the second floor, above 'Mabel's Classy Beauty Parlor'. Ask for Guido, the Bursar.

Starting Second Intifada instead of accepting Clinton offer in 2000 made building own state
much harder but it's still possible.

" This is exactly why I try to avoid Israel/Palestine threads"

You should try harder :-)

"I end up explaining to vile lunatics why their lunacy is vile."

How do you know that you are not lunatic?

Yes, they started 5000 years ago :-)

However, in 2000 Palestinians got an offer that would allow them to build own state. They chose not to take that offer. It was not a wise choice.

Well,
THey have oil.

Okay, Dubai is more like the Houston of the Middle East.
We brought democratic capitalism to Baghdad. Could it be the Singapure of Arabia?

This is odious in its one-sided portrayal of reality in many different directions. If it were your land being slowly eaten away for four decades; dirt in which an unbroken lineage of your ancestors were born, lived and died on and in that was being taken with public lies of a need for security zones, and was then subsequently handed to colonists from another continent to build and chaff up against you until the unbroken cycle began anew, and you were slowly being driven into smaller and smaller enclaves like cattle in an inexorable march towards the abattoir, would you resist?

This is not an excuse for Palestinian methods. if they had learned to embrace Gandhi after '67, the world would have been shamed into forcing a solution upon this place of foul decrepitude which all three major western religions claim as holy. If there is a place of evil in this world, it must surely be the place that contains Via Dolorosa, The Temple Mount and The Dome of the Rock. There is no justification for your implying that Israel's methods have been pure and only motivated by self-defense, or that they themselves are not a primary part of the continuing downward spiral. Do you honestly believe that civilian deaths caused by a missile launched from an F-16 is on a higher plane of goodness than that of a suicide bomber? They are both evil acts that occur, even with the foreknowledge they will result in the deaths of non-combatants, which will in turn precipitate more acts of evil retribution, and innocent deaths. There has been more than enough innocent blood spilled to stain everyone's hands red. Want to stop the suicide bombing? Arm the Palestinians with modern tanks and F-16s, give them proper instruction in how to create death and mayhem with these implements of technology. The suicide bombings would cease instantly.

In the face of this you muse sarcastically of the niceties manifested in an Asian City State's benevolent dictatorship, and pose the absurdity that empowering Fatah again will somehow magically give rise to a Utopian jackbooted heaven upon earth. Singapore seems peaceful, but I have witnessed some of its citizenry taking great efforts to engage in silly acts of dissent. Even if it is only to travel into a city park late at night to litter, or to squirrel a few pieces of chewing gum away, just for the pleasure of dropping it on the city streets when no one is looking. They do these things in an effort to to allay their self-doubt, and to prove that they are not the chattel of a megalomaniac General who believes himself to be a deity.

Oops, I think Burns has your number.

I always know I have won a debate when those I have offended turn the argument into a falacious ad homonym attack, e.g.: “your PARANOID RAVINGS, the same OVERHEATED stream of conscious ranting, clinical schizophreni[a], hysteria, invective, irrational appeals to sentiment, random outbursts of sarcasm, self pity and belligerence”. etc. You can’t argue with my reason, so you argue with me or my personality. Sorry, you would get an F- from my forensics prof.

LOL. Do you read your own stuff? I was simply parodying your own post. Thus the use of capitals and boldings, the alliterative adjectives, the whole nine yards.

ad homonym

ROTFL!!! Dude, as a post-graduatee and perfessional histriian, you ought to know that a homonym is simply two words with the same sound - two, to and too, or whether and weather, weak and week, mary and marry, witch and which.

If you're claiming that I've attacked you by sounding exactly like you, then laughingly I must plead guilty.

On the other hand, it strikes me from the context that what you are really accusing me of is making an ad hominem argument.

Fair dinkum, let's address that. In an 'ad hominem' attack, one attacks the character of the of the arguer, not the actual arguments.

It is not an ad hominem attack to characterize a particular argument as 'paranoid ravings.' Indeed, such a comment speaks to the argument, not the arguer.

It's perfectly legitimate to characterize a bankrupt argument as paranoid ravings, and it doesn't necessarily amount to a contention that the arguer is a raving paranoid... although that corollary statement could be inferred.

It is not an ad hominem argument to characterize an opponents discourse as 'stream of consciousness ranting.'

Of course, some say that the child is father to the man. Personally, I've never understood that, but I have the impression that the sentiment is that one can extrapolate back from works and words (the children) to discern the character and nature of the author (the father).

If we take your words, and work backwards, what sort of man do we meet? I say that you, as a person, are absolutely reflective of your worthless, pseudo-literate ranting.

And that, my friend, is an ad hominem argument.

That's the problem with today's "let's write history as we go along generation. Nobody cares about the facts and the truth;(self pity) and with the liberal douchebaggery (invective) that passes for academia today most people under 40 are taught that truth is a transitory concept!(sentiment) So why bother debating at all, it’s not about facts it's all about what you feel dude.(hysteria) History, truth, facts all depend on the thickness of the bong resins on ones hippocampus!(sarcasm

Congratulations! You hit every base! In attempting to rebut, you've simply made my case in spades. I don't actually need to argue with you, except to rub it in. Your bankruptcy, personal, moral, emotional and intellectual is on graphic display.

The debate is over, Dan. You lost, and it wasn't particularly close.

From here on in, you're just comic relief.

Historical Facts. (Check your library if you don't agree!)

Gaza belonged to Egypt before that nation and Jordan, Syria. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Algeria began moving troops to attack Israel for the third time since the United Nations granted the Jewish people the right to return to their ancient homeland in 1947.

This region was NEVER owned by "Palestinian" Arabs EVER,EVER. Israel occupied Gaza after their victory in the 1967 War because previously "Palestinian" Arabs who lived in Gaza at the invitation of the Egyptians were constantly shelling Israel with large (88mm and 125mm artillary guns 24 hours a day, 365 days a year). Can you imagine if your neighborhood was rained down with artillary shells 24/7/365?

Recently Israel traded the Gaza to the Arabs living there in a, "Land for Peace," deal. Unfortunately, even though Israel relocated tens of thousands of people, tore down thousands of Israeli homes, and trusted the Arabs living in the region would keep their deal, there has been no "peace" at all. It has been a, "Land for terrorism," deal and Israel is worse off than ever.

Now the Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians" want the Israelis to make the same deal in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Are they insane enought to do it???