Good post. That's the most reasonable explanation of the whole thing I've heard yet.

Michael:

I am torn but I basically agree with the pullout. But when you say that the settlers were crazy because they were surrounded by people who wanted to kill them that situation has not changed. The boundry line has just changed and if they do the same in the West Bank I do not think the thirst for the elimination of the Jewish state will be quenched. A substantial portion of the Palestinian population will only be happy with the elimination of Israel. There are enough of their neighbors who want the same outcome so I do not see peace breaking out for decades. I hope I am wrong but I doubt that this action will drive the Palestinians to the bargaining table. There seems to be a strong scent of the idea that since suicide bombers and rocket attacks worked in Gaza why stop now.

"But they’re also placing themselves in clear and present mortal danger by surrounding themselves with fanatics who want them dead."

By massacring and stealing the land of the Native Americans, The English settlers placed themselves in clear and present moral danger by surrounding themselves with fanatics who want them dead.

I will never understand the insanity of you people. Up is down, down is up. Is your judgment so impaired that you can't see how morally corrupt the above statements are?

I give up.

I hope the air is pleasant on the planet you are on. I only wish that you could comprehend that these attitudes, born out of either stupidity or a basic lack of human decency - a lack of empathy for the millions of dispossessed Palestinians rotting unjustly in refuge camps, for decades - are the reason they hate us.

Sharon has repeatedly said the withdrawal is designed to allow Israel to hold on to all of Jerusalem and major parts of the West Bank

Giving them Gaza without anything in return will make Jerusalem and the Judea and Samaria/West Bank more secure? Ridiculous. It will only embolden them. Jews must have a suicide gene or something, both Liberal and conservative.

This will not stop the palestinians from easily selling the pullout as an Israeli retreat under terrorist fire. Nor will this bring Israel any closer to peace because the palestinians have paid nothing for this victory. It was a freebie, just like Lebanon. And has that stopped Hesbollah? adoy!

The best Israel can hope for is that the world will see that Israel has made a great concession and that the palestinians will act like it never happenned, and their war on Israel will continue unabated, just like Hesbollah after Israel's retreat from Lebanon. Nothing changes when Israel makes concessions. And the world will see these bumbs run Gaza into the ground, and what a palestinian terror state will look like.

Crouton: a lack of empathy for the millions of dispossessed Palestinians rotting unjustly in refuge camps, for decades

Have you ever been to a Palestinian refugee camp? I have been to two: Sabra and Shatilla. They are more horrible than you have any idea. I'm going back soon (most likely) and will write about them at length.

In the meantime, take your half-baked evidence-free assumptions about me and piss off.

a lack of empathy for the millions of dispossessed Palestinians rotting unjustly in refuge camps, for decades - are the reason they hate us.</>

What a load of CRAP. They are rotting in camps as a testament to how barbarian the Arab culture is that lets them, nay, REQUIRES them to rot in camps to keep this war alive. Where are the camps for approximately 600,000 jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries? Where? Nowhere, because jews don't allow their people to rot in camps.

I'm going back soon (most likely) and will write about them at length.

Michael,

and when you write about these camps, perhaps you'll say a word or two about Lebanese laws which forbid palestinians from purchasing land in Lebanon so that they never leave and this war never ends.

"But they’re also placing themselves in clear and present mortal danger by surrounding themselves with fanatics who want them dead."

I'm sorry but this is too good. You're talking about settlers.

"I enjoyed living in the house I stole from the Penderwinkles, but I was also putting myself in clear and present mortal danger by the fanatics camped outside who wanted me dead."

I'm sure the international community will heap praise Israel for making this painful sacrifice on behalf of peace, and perhaps even give Sharon a Nobel Peace Prize like they gave Arafat for promising to kill fewer Jews.

And then pigs will fly over a frozen pond in Hades.

Crouton, I can read your critique in one of two ways; either you think the United States should get out of North America now, or you think the Israelis are being pansies and the Intifada isn't something a little genocide could cure.

Enlighten me which is closer to the truth.

(I'm guessing it's the former, but I could be mistaken, I guess...)

Honestly, I don't see what the Pals' problem is in all this. They're building a thriving Stone Age civilization, and now they even have a wall to keep those pesky blood-drinking Jews out.

Rotting in refugee camps. You are right. Some of the longest lasting refugee camps in the history of the world. And just think, surrounded by arab neighbors who share their language and share their religion and many of their customs. And yet none of them took in their Palestinian brothers who they are so concerned about. In fact many of them make them carry special passports that only allow short stays or they do not allow them in at all. I wonder why. Maybe we should have copied that lovely middle east custom and kept the Cuban refugees in the prisons.

Sorry Michael but I can't agree with you on some points. Its not reasonable to describe the level of terrorism as "at a low point".

Whilst the number of succesful attacks has dropped off since the defensive wall was implemented, there are still many attempts, many shootings and the level of incitement and anti-semitic hatred is still soaring.

Hamas will claim this as as their own victory, as evidence of the success of terrorism, and rule over Gaza.

Its hard to remain optimistic. I'm more inclined to support the idea put forward by Alan Dershowitz in his book "Why terrorism works", which is to strongly disincentivize any acts of terror.

When a major terror attack occurs, destroy the homes of the terrorists and surrounding properties.

Spaniard,
"The best Israel can hope for is that the world will see that Israel has made a great concession and that the palestinians will act like it never happenned"
Unfortunately, if you listen to those idiots from the left, this is just another example of Israeli aggression. (Note to the host: not everyone on the left is an idiot when it comes to this issue, but to the best of my knowledge, all idiots on this issue are from the left.)

Spaniard: It was a freebie, just like Lebanon. And has that stopped Hesbollah? adoy!

I think you're wrong. Here's why.

If I were in my twilight years and had spent a full and dangerous life dedicated to the survival of my nation by serving as a soldier and statesman, and arrived at 2005 facing the world as it exists for Ariel Sharon, I would have done exactly what he has done.

The Palestinians ended up in camps because they skedaddled out of the way of the Arab Leauge's attempt to finish Hitler's work. Only problem was that the League lost, and lost badly, and lost badly more than once.

The League also had no desire for Palestinians in any of their countries. Jordan eventually killed twenty or thirty thousand of them. The Jews of the Arab arc and beyond were welcomed to Israel - regardless of clan or family ties, or lack thereof - in the wake of the Arab nations' program of expulsion and pogroms that followed their humiliating losses. I agree with Spaniard, again, with the caveat that blaming the Arabs totally for the Palestinians is simplistic.

If you start a war and lose, you don't get to return to go with all your money. The Arab beef was never about just Israel; it's a matter of theological, political, and basically tribal vendetta and always has been. The Jews took their shitty little corner of the Arab world and made it bloom. Without oil. Without dictators. And nothing pisses off losers more than living next door to winners.

Here in 2005, the gulf between losers and winners has never been wider. The world has, however, become much smaller and the hate of those that just don't get this civilization thing has many more opportunities to manifest itself than it ever has before.

Returning Gaza does nothing to change the Palestinian political landscape. There will not be any rise of moderate Palestinian voices, nor will there be (as noted by Tall Dave) any meaningful shift in foreign political positions as a result of this move.

What it will do is embolden the factions competing for primacy in the Palestinian thugocracy to exploit the geographic gains they will surely propagandize as spoils of their war - it will be held up as a stepping stone. They will not be subtle. Their rhetoric and behaviour - and the murders they commit - as the different factions attempt to exploit the "victory" will surely surpass any standard of nihilist barbarity we thought we recognised already.

There's nothing remotely resembling a Palestinian government. There are factions fighting over turf ranging from simple crime operations all the way up to Iranian surrogates intent on being in on the kill, and they all line up under "kill the Jews/Great Satan" banners when convenient.

No, Sharon has done the best that he could do for Israel. His last act as PM - probably his last act in public life - will probably trigger open civil war among the Palestinians.

They have been breeding to bury Israel for generations. They will end up killing each other.

Michael,

Great post. I agree that this is the best choice Sharon could have made in this situation. It seems to me that this is a legitimate attempt to reach a lasting peace. Of course, some will be skeptical (mainly the Israeli hardliners), and some will never be satisfied, unable to get past their anti-Israel biases (like poor Crouton). Anyway, I think this move is great step, although a painful one.

>Crouton, I can read your critique in one of two ways; either you think the United States should get out of North America now,

No, I think that a huge injustice was done to the Native Americans, a long time ago. Eventually as a nation we acknowledged that, tried to make it better in paltry ways. But the first step, maybe the most important step, is to acknowledge that what was done was wrong.

>or you think the Israelis are being pansies and the Intifada isn't something a little genocide could cure.

No, I think a huge injustice was done to the Palestinians and it needs to be acknowledged. Instead you blame the victims as "fanatics who want them dead". Gee, I wonder why.

>Anyway, I think this move is great step, although a painful one.

How is it painful to give up land that isn't even your land to begin with ? Land that was occupied and bulldozed from the wretched dispossessed who still grovel not a few miles away?

This is insanity.
Up is down, down is up.

The invaders are labeled the oppressed, the oppressed are labeled terrorists. We are through the looking glass.

Well... enjoy the air on your planet.

Peace.

The Palestinians ended up in camps because they skedaddled out of the way of the Arab Leauge's attempt to finish Hitler's work.

Bzzzzt. Gowins's law. Go sit in the corner.

The League also had no desire for Palestinians in any of their countries. Jordan eventually killed twenty or thirty thousand of them. The Jews of the Arab arc and beyond were welcomed to Israel

What a ridiculous equivalency. Israel welcomes Jews because it reinforces their hold on the land. The Arabs dont "take in" the Palestinians because neither want to weaken the Palestinians claim to their homes.

If you start a war and lose, you don't get to return to go with all your money.

The Palestinians people didnt start any war. The Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian government did. And no, even if you win a war that the other side started, you dont get to incorporate the land and steal the people's land for your own people. Not by the rules that the US has always supported.

The Jews took their shitty little corner of the Arab world and made it bloom. Without oil. Without dictators

But with tens of billions of your tax dollars.

the hate of those that just don't get this civilization thing

Funny, but I bet that you might not have such kind feelings toward that "civilization thing" if it meant that people from thousands of miles away could move into your happy little valley, sieze your property, and establish a state based on their own culture. Somehow, I'm guessing, you would take up arms over a lot less.

I'm sure the international community will heap praise Israel for making this painful sacrifice on behalf of peace, and perhaps even give Sharon a Nobel Peace Prize

Sure. Spend thirty years expropriating peoples land by force, then give a sliver back because the demographics wont allow you to continue as a democracy unless you shed some load.

I think we should go over to TallDave's and steal his TV, his car, and his clock radio. Thirty years from now, we'll give back the radio.
And get a prize! Maybe a Nobel prize!

I agree with TmJUtah, this act is more likely to provoke more violence, not less.

However, I can see why Sharon did it. It removed from protection an isolated set of outposts, and removes considerable Palestinian population from direct Israeli rule.

What this will mean in the short run is likely an enhanced, Al-Qaeda involved, massive terror campaign against Israel with Gaza as the base. Constant rocket, mortar, and suicide attacks against the Israelis. If terror drove them out of Gaza, why not out of the remaining part of Israel? I can see that dynamic happening. Most of the Palestinian population believes it. And TmJUtah is right, Palestinians resemble really a collection of armed and competing gangs. My dissent is that they'll likely combine first against Israel and hope to come out on top with the prize (destruction of Israel).

This gives Sharon a free hand to respond in a military manner, and remind the Palestinians that Israel unleashed can crush them. Politically, Bush can't say no, given Sharon going the extra mile and the Democratic Party falling into lunatic anti-Semitism ala Cindy Sheehan (her latest endorser, David Duke and no I'm not kidding).

What happens next of course is unknowable. Will Egypt, Syria, and Jordan try again to crush Israel militarily thinking Sharon is tied down in Gaza and unable to respond? They might. It's been a while since there was a war and Israel is perceived throughout the region as weak and vulnerable. THAT just encourages attack.

Such an action might actually have some small positives. If Israel soundly defeats those nations and the Palestinian gangs in Gaza, a small dose of reality might shift into Palestinian thought. A very slim chance of that (Palestinians delude themselves into thinking they can destroy Israel). But maybe better than none at all.

Overall though, I'd say this makes the region more unstable and headed for War. Which will kill a lot of people, most of them innocent, before it's done.

Observer,

Take a deep breath. Stop hyperventilating.

Jim Rockford: What this will mean in the short run is likely an enhanced, Al-Qaeda involved, massive terror campaign against Israel with Gaza as the base.

Not likely. Terrorists haven't been able to hit Israel from Gaza for many years. It is, and has been, walled off for a long time.

Rockford again: Will Egypt, Syria, and Jordan try again to crush Israel militarily thinking Sharon is tied down in Gaza and unable to respond?

How will Sharon be tied down in Gaza? Sharon has been tied down in Gaza and is now leaving.

Whose land is it???

Native Americans did not believe in the concept of "owning land" -- the strongest tribe took possession of the happiest hunting grounds, weaker tribes got less good grounds; and the nomads moved on. You can't easily sell something you don't think anybody can own. Land ownership is a zero-sum game (more one owns, the less for others.) Nor can whites "steal" it; they, as a stronger tribe, took control. But didn't move on.
(Yes, the US gov't made many specific treaties that they then violated -- each violation was certainly unjust and should require compensation.)

The primary purpose of government is to decide who owns what land. Palestine had long been under the Ottoman's. Zionist Jews had begun emigrating there since the late 1890s, and were peacefully buying it. And making it more productive, thus more attractive to the economically less advanced non-Jews. Before WW I the Ottoman Turks controlled it, including deciding who owned what; afterwards the British the French controlled it, deciding who owned what, and trying to stop Jews from peacefully coming, while allowing more Arabs. Then WW II, including the fact that Hitler's Muslim Mufti of Jerusalem was calling for more Jew-hate murder.

Holocaust (Shoah), many survivors to Palestine, a two-state UN plan discussed, Arabs disagree, Jews declare independence. Israel/Jewish independence very similar to Burma's independence, or India's, except that a) the Jews wanted a Jewish state, and b) the Arabs around them, who did not control Palestine, nevertheless didn't want the Jews to, and c) Egypt and other Arabs attacked Israel while calling for Arabs in Israel to leave.
Today's Palestinians are those Arabs who followed the Jew-hating advice to leave, so as to allow more slaughter of Jews. And in the wars, the Jewish Israelis won; and won; and won. (Arabs who didn't leave are doing fine as Israeli citizens.)

Yes, in the independence war, there were some Jewish committed massacres and atrocities (at least a couple of towns). The establishment of Israel was not a fully just act -- but there is no good standard for breaking up an empire in a just way; none of the other ex-Ottoman territories became functioning democracies (except Lebanon for a good while?); Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan -- their governments were also established in not fully just ways.

I'm enraged by the hypocritical double standard ("higher") judging against democratic Israel, favoring Palestinian terrorism. The disgusting conditions (I've never experienced, only on TV) are whose fault? -- The Palestinian's fault. They know how to hate, to destroy, to bomb, to cheer destruction -- but they seem unable to allow a free press. They would kill Palestinians who express disagreement with Arafat. Hamas & Fatah are going to be caught in a Pali Civil War, both trying to prove who hates Israel more.

nothing pisses off losers more than living next door to winners. (Reminds me of the Samizdata thread about the death of Mrs. Miniver why Brits hate America so much.) The Jews in Israel show how democracy and peace can make even the oil-less desert bloom.

The Arabs ought to be ashamed, and I think they are, but unfortunately they are subscribing to the idea of Honor killing to reduce shame, rather than working harder & smarter for more success.

Wasn't that Malaysia's PM's idea -- worker harder than the Jews? Oh yeah; in order to kill them, afterward. I happen to feel that if the Arabs ever get in the habit of working harder to be better than the Jews, they'll give up the killing.

Gaza is soon to be Palestinian land; and Pali land only. The problems there, which are likely to be many, will be Pali problems. If the Palis can't create a peaceful society there, they won't deserve any more in the West Bank or Jerusalem.

I suspect Sharon is planning to use the expected failure of the Palis in Gaza as a diplomatic weapon to justify Jewish gains in Jerusalem (a Pali house for each Pali attack?). So I advise the Palestinians to stop destroying, and start building -- just to spite Sharon, just to show 'em.

I predict Pali civil war and murder, poorly covered by the West; I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

I thought Norm Geras was busy with Cricket. He is. He has a guest, Linda Grant, who seems to agree with me.
So she must be right! er, left, progressive and correct. She's against the fence: "A unilateral declaration by the Israelis. There is nothing here for the left to celebrate. Such a state is neither viable, nor is it or could it ever be acceptable to the Palestinians."

She's wrong. Any small piece of land in the world is big enough to be a "state." All it takes is peaceful neighbors. Gaza is much bigger than Monaco -- and could be just as successful.

I'm always amazed that there are still people around who want to debate the events of 1948. Sure, the Jewish settlement of pre-1948 Palestine entailed some injustice to the local people living there. It certainly wasn't the worst injustice ever perpetrated in the history of mankind, the Jews had a better than average excuse for it (escaping genocide - the holocaust and the czarist pogroms before that)and the Arabs had the option of accepting an accomodation which would have left them with half of their original landholdings - certainly a better deal than the American Indians ever got.

One can look more meaningfully at events after 1967, when the West Bank and Gaza Strip fell into Israeli hands. True, many felt the land was theirs for the taking, either as God's will, or as a strategic necessity. However, there were many in the labor government who would have been amenable to returning the land in exchange for peace. One position put forth by the head of IDF intelligence at the time recommended returning the Golan Heights and the Sinai in return for peace with Syria and Egypt, with the Palestinian refugee problem solved by setting up an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. Whether this would have passed the government we'll never know, since the whole issue was mooted by the famous three "no's" of the Arab Summit in Khartoum - "no negotiations, no recognition, no peace". At the time, there was nothing resembling a Palestinian leadership, and when it did emerge several years later, it was rejectionist and terroristic.

So what was Israel to do, set the land aside in trust for people who wanted to kill them? Sure, the settlement policy was a big mistake, but it's not clear what alternate path history could have taken, given the until recent implacability of Israel's enemies. Certainly, the issue is far more complex than the simplistic moral equation of Observer and the other ISMers on the site. By the way, I think the air on his planet is nitrous oxide.

Oh, and just to respond to a pathetic old canard - the Palestinians never declared war on Israel, just like Osama bin Laden has never declared war on the U.S. However, they did launch a massive and bloody insurgency between November 1947 and May 1948, with outside assistance, and this is often referred to as the first war of independance, until they were finally pacified.

but almost everyone else in the world should be relieved that Ariel Sharon – at long last – is pulling everyone and everything out of Gaza.

I'm not relieved at all. While I'm completely in favor of Israel removing its presence from Gaza, I'm absolutely not in favor of them doing it unilaterally.

I also don't feel bad for the settlers who are being expelled - they are being compensated and given new places to live - they don't need to have the best surf in Gaza to lead quality lives.

However, to get nothing in exchange for the disengagement will be, has been, and is being, perceived as a victory for Palestinian terrorism.

So the terrorism will continue because it works.

Maybe longterm this will seem like the right move - today it seems like the Israelis are rewarding terror while not being seen as sufficiently magnanimous by the E.U. for giving up something for nothing.

It's lose-lose.

It's telling, I suppose, that Tom Grey, who refers to himself as a libertarian and yet almost always adopts the hard-right's positions, would actually try to find a way to defend the extermination of Native Americans.

Calling it wrong, and calling it a genocide, and calling it theft, do not mean that we need to kick people out of North America - it's a little too late for that. But we should still recognize what happened for what it was. Simply because they had no concept of "land ownership" in the formal, legalized sense that European settlers had does not mean that it was A-OK to murder and enslave Native Americans en masse in order to take their land.

But then, finding some trivial way to justify horrible crimes - "they didn't think they owned it, so it was ok to shoot them in the back so our ancestors could build houses over their graves!" - doesn't seem to be anything new for the right.

Sure. Spend thirty years expropriating peoples land by force

Not really. They've actually spent 30 years giving land back to people who say they're going to exterminate the Jews, taken as a defensive measure when those people were actually engaged in trying to exterminate the Jews. Not quite the same thing.

would actually try to find a way to defend the extermination of Native Americans.

Native Americans were not intentionally exterminated; that's a crock. 90% of them died of European diseases brought by explorers, long before America was established. The rest were mostly pushed out by wars due to treaties they signed but could not enforce among their own people.

It's funny, we never hear the Bantu expansion in Africa, which was far more brutal than the colonial American expansion, described as "extermination" or "genocide."

You can't find any group anywhere with an innocent past, including those Native Americans.

Would you guys stop confirming my assumptions about how horrible some of your views are?

You're right, the Bantu expansion into Africa was pretty nasty. The Roman expansion into Europe was nasty, and the Germanic expansion into the Western Empire was nasty, and the Asian expansion into eastern Europe was nasty. Maybe the Indo-European expansion into Stone Age Europe was nasty, and maybe it wasn't.

Who the fuck cares?

Oh, wait, I get it. This goes back to the whole "Abu Ghraib doesn't matter because Saddam was worse" line of reasoning. People you like do something really disgusting? Well, find someone who did something worse! Man, those Bantus were pretty shitty! US troops torturing cab drivers to death? Hey, look over there, Hitler!

"You can't find any group anywhere with an innocent past".

And that's the key, isn't it, to this whole line of thinking? Because a "group" lacks an innocent past, it doesn't matter what happens to its members? That's what you're trying to argue, right? Because some Native Americans did bad things, others deserve to die, right? You and Mika been talking?

"Native Americans were not intentionally exterminated".

Um......no. Sorry. That's just not right. From the very beginning, European settlers engaged in systematic genocide of Native Americans. Whether it was Spaniards working them to death in gold mines or English settlers organizing raids to wipe out entire villages or American troops destroying food stores in winter so entire tribes would starve, it was genocide. Genocide, genocide, genocide. Genocide. Genocide.

I'm not sure why people have such a problem admitting things like this. Is there some need for your side to be totally pure? I read this sort of historical revisionism all the time. Whether its arguing that there was no genocide against Native Americans or arguing that some politician or another would have been a Republican were he alive now, there's this need to draw all goodness to your side and cast all badness on the other.

Look, white folks living in America: most of us have ancestors who, in the last couple of hundred years, did some disgusting things to Native Americans and to African slaves. Not everyone, but many who didn't are still living on land that's only ours because genocide was committed. Does that make us bad people? Does that mean that we should leave our land? No, of course not. Recognizing bad things in history does not make us culpable in those bad things.

But denying they ever happened so as to avoid any reckoning with the past is a pretty shitty thing to do.

Because some Native Americans did bad things, others deserve to die, right?

Well, what's your point then? So everyone in the past is bad. So what?

From the very beginning, European settlers engaged in systematic genocide of Native Americans.

Sorry, that's a load of crap.

But denying they ever happened so as to avoid any reckoning with the past is a pretty shitty thing to do.

Making up crap that didn't happen is even worse.

Land that was occupied and bulldozed from the wretched dispossessed who still grovel not a few miles away?

That's a load of ignorant propagandistic hooey, the kind we've come to expect from white Liberals long accustomed to speaking from their gut, not their brain. Not one palestinian has been "dispossessed" by a single Israeli settlement.

Show me evidence. proof. Put up or shut up right now.

The European settlers were certainly doing no worse than those they replaced, and in fact were morally better in almost every way. Failure to acknoledge that in your fit of ancestor flagellation makes your arguments less than pointless.

"Well, what's your point then? So everyone in the past is bad. So what?"

TallDave, I believe I should be asking you that question. I said "it was wrong to committ genocide against Native Americans to steal their land."

You said "hey, no group has an innocent past."

I made fun of you.

Why? Because what the fuck difference does it make if a group has an innocent past or not? What is a group, except for a collection of individuals? What you were saying is: at some point in the past, some people did bad things, and other people alive now, some of whom might be descendents of those people who did bad things, well, what does it matter if bad things happen to them? No group has an innocent past!

TallDave, you were holding up the Bantu as an example of a group that did bad things in the past...as a way of countering an argument that genocide against Native Americans was bad.

So let me set this out again, so I can be as clear as possible:

I said: genocide bad.

In response, you said: no group is innocent.

I took that to mean: to excuse hurting innocent people, I will point out that no group is innocent because some of the members of the group did bad things.

Get it? I was making fun of you. I literally took what you wrote, and you wrote bad with "Huh? Why are you saying that? That doesn't make sense."

Um, right.

Right. Every European settler was morally better than every Native American. Because people like you cannot conceive of individuals, they can only conceive of groups. Indians bad. White man good.

But I'm curious: why were they morally better in almost every way?

No, you said American settlers committed genocide, which is just not true. The continent was pretty much empty when they got there, and the wars that were started were usually started by the natives.

The Native Americans were warring with each other all the time too, and did much worse to each other than the settlers did.

So again, you don't seem to have a point, unless your point is everyone is bad.

But I'm curious: why were they morally better in almost every way?

See, this is the stuff that people like you are totally ignorant of. You've bought into the myth of the "noble savage." Well, the reality is there were was very little nobility and a lot of savagery.

For starters, Native Americans had no concept of human rights, no commitment to reason or civilizaton, no compunction about rape or murder or kidnapping or cannibalism... they were savages. It's only from the lofty eights of modern moral relativity that wa say "Well, that was their culture, so it's OK and we can't condemn it."

Oh, for example, the Sullivan Campaign, in which George Washington ordered John Sullivan to "not merely overrun, but destroy" the Iroquois in New York. Sullivan razed over forty villages. Here are Washington's orders:

"The Expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.

I would recommend, that some post in the center of the Indian Country, should be occupied with all expedition, with a sufficient quantity of provisions whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed.

But you will not by any means listen to any overture of peace before the total ruinment of their settlements is effected. Our future security will be in their inability to injure us and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire them."

It worked. With their villages destroyed, and with no food left for the winter, most of them starved.

In other words, George Washington ordered extermination, and that's what he got.

Does this detract from Washington's role as the founder of our Republic? Nope. It just means that he did some pretty nasty things. He owned slaves while talking about freedom. That sort of thing. Glossing over history just because it's unpleasant makes you worse than a dumbass who just doesn't know the material. It makes you a liar.

Yeah, that's called "war." It's not genocide.

Washington didn't say "go out and round up all Iroquis, every man, woman and child, and exterminate them from the Earth." His goal was to destory their ability to make war on the settlers.

"Our future security will be in their inability to injure us and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire them"

is not

"We will wipe them from the face of the Earth so they can trouble us no more."

Again, calling war genocide is just meaningless ancestor flagellation. I know it's the popular thing to do these days, but it's still a lie.

TallDave, this has nothing to do with the "noble savage" myth. This has to do with the fact that they were simply people, trying to live their lives, and they were murdered so other people could live on their land.

Yes, some tribes practiced cannibalism, though very few. Some practiced slavery, though again, very few. Many warred on each other. There was, indeed rape, and torture.

All of these things also existed in Europe. Hm....all of these things still exist today!

There were, of course, some tribes who elevated the bravery of counting coup over slaughtering their enemies, which the Europeans found baffling, and some who created elaborate political structures which helped inspire American federalism. Just as there were Europeans who were not engaged in cannibalism, war, torture, or rape.

Liberals are always accused of feeling "liberal guilt", which is why we try to help other people. I think what happened was terrible - but I feel no guilt at what other people did.

You, on the other hand, seem to be dangerously close to a horrible sense of guilt - maybe because you can only think in terms of collective guilt and collective punishment - and so need to create these elaborate fantasies in which those terrible Injun savages were killed for their own good by the morally upright European settlers.

Actually, it's not ancestor flagelation. None of mine had anything to do with it. Mine mostly came over after the Indian wars were finished. Those who were here before were in Nova Scotia - nowhere near Canada's fighting.

That doesn't mean that I don't recognize that my home is built on land that used to belong to someone else, until he was killed, along with his family and his entire way of life.

You, on the other hand, need to pretend that it was ok. Which is, you know, kinda weird.

they were simply people, trying to live their lives, and they were murdered so other people could live on their land.

Again, that's simply a crock. The settlers didn't show up and say "Well, let's exterminate these locals so we can take their land."

Yes, some tribes practiced cannibalism, though very few
The Aztecs were not "a few," they were the dominant S. American civilization. The religious state did it every time there was a war. In fact, sometimes they went to war just so they could eat people. They ate some of Cortez' people, too.

All of these things also existed in Europe
They weren't the common, accepted practices of European societies.

elaborate fantasies in which those terrible Injun savages were killed for their own good by the morally upright European settlers.

That's a pretty stupid strawman even for you. No, they weren't killed "for their own good," they were usually killed in self-defense.

That doesn't mean that I don't recognize that my home is built on land that used to belong to someone else, until he was killed, along with his family and his entire way of life.

So is every other person alive today anywhere in the world, so what's your point?

You, on the other hand, need to pretend that it was ok.

I don't pretend it was OK, but I don't make it out to be something much worse than it was, either.

You know? I don't know why I get myself into these things. I used to argue with Mika that genocide was wrong, and now I'm arguing with TallDave that genocide is wrong, and all I've done is frustrate myself while learning that there are still people out there who are ok with genocide.

It's a little gross. I wash my hands of it. If Michael Totten wants his comments to look like LGF, that's his business. I've tried pointing out how horrible some of these people are, and it took him months before he did something about Mika. This is why I don't visit so often anymore.

George Washington said stuff like:

"total destruction and devastation of their settlements"

"essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more"

"lay waste all the settlements around"

"not be merely overrun, but destroyed"

"you will not by any means listen to any overture of peace"

"total ruinment of their settlements"

Take that, you bloodthirsty sons of whores!

Sorry, but the narrative that says the Israelis/Jews invaded the 'happy little valleys' of the local Arabs, pushed them out, then suppressed the Palestinians' justified anger, is contrary to historical fact and lacks all context.

It really is important to note that the Jews were fleeing extermination, true genocide, and were returning to the geographical home of their people, at a time when it wasn't under the control of them or Arabs - it was a territory of European powers.

It really is important to note that those European powers later drew up the boundaries that gave land to the interested parties.

It really is important that land occupied by Israel was gained in a war of defense, against those massive neighbors who had sworn explicitly to destroy it. It's important that the movement to attack Israelis was started before the occupation that supposedly provoked it. It's important that Israel has always attempted to trade that land for peace, with few receptive ears.

It really is important to note that Israel is a country so small it's hard to imagine, surrounded by massive, long-entrenched hostile nations.

It really is important to note that Arab nations are truly equally responsible for Palestinian misery, out of various political motives, and Arab leaders use the Palestinian 'cause' to blind and control their own people, and that some Westerners lap up the propaganda of fascist theocrats. Meanwhile in Israel, Arabs vote.

Anyone who would call these facts insignificant must claim that all specifics are meaningless, that there is no differentiating between actions in history, or between actors.

Again, those are war, not genocide. You seem totally incapable of understanding the difference.

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that people who think wars of self-defense against Native American savages were "genocide" think similar thoughts about Israel's wars of self-defense against Arabs despots.

I find the ignorance of those moral equivalence arguments depressing.

Now I realise why the Germans are ferociously bombing the Poles and Russians: how can they be expected to live in peace with the injustice of the expropriation of Prussia and Silesia in 1945?
Or the Greeks with their expusion from Ionia by the Turks in 1920?
(etc. etc.)

Israelis needs to be out of Gaza for their own sake...---MJT

And this is about the only point that will stand the test of external reality.

On a scale of 1-10, what are the odds that Gaza will now evolve into a thriving little example of Palestinian desire and ability to establish a coherent,peaceful State? The reason that the WALL and the Gaza withdrawl are taking place more or less simultaneously is that Sharon fully plans to let the Palestinians destroy themselves on the OTHER SIDE of the barrier, while saving Israel the ridiculous expense of supporting 9000 settlers in Gaza.

This unilateral action might have led to a wider peace in some alternative universe, but not in the context of the ME. Now we can watch from afar the edifying spectacle of intra-Palestinian warfare, as the complete lunatics battle it out with the merely expedient lunatics.

This is not the first step in a wider process; it is a one off, taken for tactical/strategic purposes. It will not really advance the 'peace' process; it will as one of Sharon's advisors related ,merely encase it in amber.

Peace depends on getting control of the lunatics on each side. Sharon is doing his part for whatever motivations. There is zero chance of Abbas doing anything remotely similar. Zero Chance.

The Liar, I mean Observer, wrote

"The Palestinians ended up in camps because they skedaddled out of the way of the Arab Leauge's attempt to finish Hitler's work.

Bzzzzt. Gowins's law. Go sit in the corner."

No Godwin's Law this time. Arabs stated repeatedly and publicly, in 1948, 1967, and many times since, that their goal is to "finish what Hitler started" - in those exact words. Hamas is dedicated to the annihilation of Jews and Israel. There is no difference between them and the Nazis whatsoever.

Just one more.

"Again, those are war, not genocide. You seem totally incapable of understanding the difference."

Because genocide never occurs within the context of war, right TallDave?

"I guess it shouldn't surprise me that people who think wars of self-defense against Native American savages were "genocide" think similar thoughts about Israel's wars of self-defense against Arabs despots."

I never once said anything about Israel. You made that assumption. Jackass.

1. Palastinians do not legally own the West Bank and Gaza under traditional US or international law. It has long been recognized that property can be acquired by right of conquest. In fact, nearly all national boundaries in the world today were created by conquest. Why should the claim of Israel, alone, be viewed as not legitimate? The Soviets completely (unilaterally) redrew the boundaries of Eastern Europe after WWII. Why are their no claims that this was illegitimate? Anti-Semitism? Support for Communism? For example, the fact of the matter is that today nobody takes seriously the claim that Gdansk (the now Polish city which was the German city of Danzig for centuries) or Kaliningrad (the now Russian city which was the German city of Konigsburg, the capitol of Prussia, for centuries) really "belong" to Germany.

2. The purpose for permitting acquisition of property by conquest is to ensure that title vests to property and that historical grievances cannot be used as an excuse for war. If historical claims are given validity, you have set yourself up for endless warfare, because people always have historical claims. The modern state of Israel is no exception. Prior to being Israel, it was possessed by the British, the Turks, Muslim caliphs, Crusaders, prior iterations of the State of Israel, Assyrians, Romans, etc. Not only would sorting out these claims equitably be virtually impossible, the process itself would likely touch off a whole new round of historical grievances and, even it it didn't, accepting the validity of historical claims is a recipe for perpetual warfare. Moreover, most of the people who claim to be aggrieved weren't even alive when the conduct they complain about occurred, making their claims tenuous, at best. (It is interesting that some of the same people who contend that you shouldn't be allowed to inherit your father's money have no problem with the notion that you should be able to inherit your father's grievance).

3. The Palastinians do not clearly have the moral high ground, either. They did not control the territory of Israel proper when it was given to Israel. They did not control the West Bank and Gaza prior to 1967 (those territories belonged to Jordan and Egypt, respectively at the time). They started all of the wars (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973) in an attempt to obliterate Israel and lost every time. Their government does not even de facto control most of the territory it over which it has has de jure ownership, and it has not done a good job of much of anything in the way of governance when given the chance. In contrast, Israel is at least internally stable enough to govern the territory it controls. Whatever the respective merits of the initial claims to the settlements, forcibly removing them is likely to turn a stable area into another lawless zone.

4. I have previously expressed the opinion that the winners of the world are those who look to the future, while the losers of the world are those who are obsessed with holding on to the past. The Palastinians will never have a functioning society until they GET OVER IT. Some Arabs got screwed in 1948, but life's not fair. The only thing you can do when bad things happen is make the best of it and move on with your life or wallow in self-pity and nurture your hatred. Those who do the former have a chance of success, while those who do the latter are doomed to failure.

5. This dispute can only end in one of two ways: (a) The Arabs wipe out Israel or (b) the Palastinians in particular and Arabs in general accept the fact of Israel and move on with their lives. Neither appears likely to happen any time soon, so the reviled Wall appears to be the best short term solution (i.e., arbitrarily decide where the borders are and forcibly keep the parties separated). This may not be an ideal or "fair" solution, but it seems the most likely way to keep bloodshed to a minimum.

6. After that long somewhat OT rant, my two cents on the Israeli pull-out is that it was done largely for tactical reasons. I suspect Sharon is looking at this as a general trying to rationalize his defensive lines and that he sees the settlements in Gaza as difficult-to-defend outposts that hinder Israel's ability to have a more-or-less secure front in that area. I suspect that he has given up on trying to negotiate a solution and is simply trying to save as many Israeli lives as possible. Of course, this is speculation, and I could be wrong.

You should, of course, preview before posting. "Their" should be "there" in the first paragraph, and I no doubt missed other errors.

Bonus points for The Commenter for including Abu Grab in an agruement about Native Americans.

Commenter,

I think that the distinction that isn’t being made is that there is a difference between genocide and war. Genocide is organized program practiced for the purpose of the wholesale extermination of a specific ethnic, cultural, or religious group. Warfare is organized overt violence practiced in order to achieve some discrete political end. In some cases, the political end may be genocide (i.e. the comment about genocide occurring in the context of war), but not all very violent wars can be considered genocidal. Conversely, the Holocaust was a genocide, but not considered a ‘war’.

In the case of the settlement of the Americas, it was not a case of genocide, as the end objective for engaging in violence was not the extermination of a people. More specifically, there are two concurrent features of the war that bear mention. First is the practice of Western-style warfare against a non-Western people. The notion of waging war not only against soldiers but the warfighting means of an opponent was by no means new at the time (see also the Third Punic War). The second element is that for a great many Scots-Irish settlers (who spent a great deal of time engaged in conflict with the Indians) practiced a very specific form of clan-based retaliation for violence.

In combination, quite often a Native American tribe might do something like raid a settlement, scalp a defender or two and ride off with captured women. In the Indian model of warfare, this was accepted practice. But according to the mores of the settlers, this was an atrocity of the sort that demanded something far more vigorous than simple retaliation in kind. Wedded to the whole notion of fighting against the means of waging war, we ended up with settlers going in and razing entire villages.

Was this a 'merited' response? I'm not really convinced it matters altogether that much. It's not unlike asking whether or not the strategic bombing of Japan was merited. However, in both cases, it doesn't qualify as genocide. Similarly, in both cases, the vast numbers of civilian dead (from direct violence, or aftereffects like disease and starvation) was essentially a side-effect resulting from the trend towards total war in conflict with the west.

By way of rough analogy, it goes back to the principle of never bringing a knife to a gunfight. The Indians, essentially, were knife fighting, and we were gun fighting. Does that mean they were shot down in cold blood or murdered? No, it just means they ended up in a fight with a far more lethal opponent than they were accustomed to.

Good points Bravo.

It's worth noting too that some Indians, like the Navajo, did not go to war against the Europeans and in fact were so fascinated by them that many adopted European languages and customs, becoming integral parts of early American society.

I just can't pass this up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Wars

TallDave, your grasp of history seems to lie somewhere between "idiocy" and "delusional".

I said "some."

Your grasp of English is lacking.

No, TallDave, you said "some Indians, like the Navajo, did not go to war against the Europeans".

I assumed you were using "like" incorrectly, as most people do, and what you meant was "some Indians, such as the Navajo, did not go to war against the Europeans".

If you meant "some Indians, similar to the Navajo (but not including them)," then by all means, I'm wrong.

But, I have a feeling that you meant the Navajo to be an example of Indians who did not go to war with whites. Yet, they did. Ergo, your history is bad.

LOL I can only feel sorry for someone who doesn't understand the meaning of the word "genocide," can't read a simple sentence, and calls everyone who disagreees with him delusional idiots.

Say what you will of the settlers. But they are leaving prime developed real estate behind (I am not sure how many will reinact the scene from Atlas Shrugged where Wyatt torches his oil fields rather then let them be nationalized leaving the note "I left them as I found them.").

I imagine it will be "interesting", or just plain disturbing given the PA's inherent corruption in the boarding on anarchy, to see as to who gets those parts of the Jewish Settlements that remain intact - and how. But I doubt that the press will want us to see that.

Sigh.

Many Navajo did not go to war with whites, but instead adapted to white culture. I'm sorry you have trouble with reading comprehension.

Giving up Gaza is a no-lose proposition (unless you count dreams of messianic destiny). Either, as some have commented, it is a brilliant tactic that will allow Israel to shed an indefensible position and get the world off it's back (at least for a while)or it is a grand strategy that will set in motion new forces that in time could lead to a permanent settlement with Israel. If the place turns into Afghanistan, it will take Israel less than an afternoon to reconquer the place, and who will blame them then?

I don't want to repeat what's already been said, but one compelling reason for the disengagement that has not been mentioned is that the settler movement has become a dangerous influence in Israel and needs to be taken down. They and their supporters in government, the military, and the bureacracy, form a kind of shadow government, and far from the eyes of most Israelis, they get away with absolute murder. Allowed to get much stronger, and they could pose a real danger to Israeli democracy.

get the world off it's back

I used to agree with that idea, but more and more I see the world is filled with people like Commenter who will only get off Israel's back sometime after a wintry Hades is inundated by porcine aviators.

It doesn't matter what Israel does anymore. The affront of its very existence is too much for some to bear, and those people will always have ther apologists in the West.

OOOOOOH TallDave is right, I just hate Israel for its very existence! There isn't a single thing its government or any of its citizens could do that would in any way alleviate some of my criticism of Israel! OOOOH! Israel just burns my britches! The idea that in a conflict between two parties, both parties might have legitimate grievances, why, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard!

Now, where's an Islamofascist for me to hug?

Strawman and his friends contend they do not hate Israel and ridicule anyone for saying they do hate Israel, but when push comes to shove Israel always seems to be wrong. Interesting.

I have always considered the treatment of American Indians during the last two centuries as genocidal. It may not have been a total genocide like the Jewish holocaust, more like a creeping genocide, but I think it's wrong to define genocide out of existence. I don't want to trade fact for fact, as I'm not any kind of expert on the subject, but I do remember reading many accounts of soldiers and civilian militia riding into Indian camps and shooting anything that moved (and raping, plundering, and mutilating). I remember reading accounts of California settlers herding groups of harmless, stone age indians into caves and ravines and slaughtering them. I remember reading accounts of U.S. officials distributing blankets to Indians that had just come off corpses infected with smallpox. The same sorts of things happened in Australia (particularly Tasmania)and parts of Latin America. It was genocide. The destruction of an unwanted population. There was no CNN back then, and people could and did get away with murder.

I just hate Israel for its very existence!

Maybe you don't, but there those who do, and I bet you've been an apologst for them.

Want to know what real calls for genocide sound like? Here you go:

----------------
“You will find that the Jews were behind all the civil strife in this world. The Jews are behind the suffering of the nations.”

When and where did that venom come from?

This last May — and out of the hateful mouth of a prominent Palestinian cleric, Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris. He was broadcast on a Palestinian Authority station.

The televised Sheik finished with an even more frightening thought: “The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews — even the stones and trees which were harmed by them…The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.”

Nothing could be clearer than that promise of another holocaust — and promised explicitly on state-run Palestinian television, a public megaphone of the Palestinian Authority, itself the beneficiary of past and apparently promised future American financial aid.
----------------

Courtesy VDH.

Take that, you bloodthirsty sons of whores!--Commenter

What a remarkably unpleasant comment. And relating to long-past history at that.

Valium, my man. Lots and lots and lots of Valium.

MarkC,

Yep, that's the history we're taught today. You have to look more closely to see the cause was usually self-defense.

It's the same attitude we see today toward nuking Japan in the 1940s. Had the American public been asked at the time, it would probably have gone 90-10 for the bombing.

From the luxury of these comfortable times, it's easy to criticize those who had to make difficult decisions in the past.

Ben writes,

I have previously expressed the opinion that the winners of the world are those who look to the future, while the losers of the world are those who are obsessed with holding on to the past. The Palastinians will never have a functioning society until they GET OVER IT

Serious empirical flaw in your argument. Israel, of course, is a nation founded on the idea of looking to the past - over eighteen hundred years in the past to be precise. If the Jews can claim an almighty right to land, because their ancestors lived their 1800 years ago, and you support such a notion, then how can you criticize Palestinians for wishing to return to the homes that some of them were born in?

Palastinians do not legally own the West Bank and Gaza under traditional US or international law.

Israel certainly doesnt. If you accept the basic principles of democracy, then land belongs to the people living there. Not to people who have a messianic historical claim to the land.

It has long been recognized that property can be acquired by right of conquest

Not true. It is an established principle of international law (i.e the "world order" propagated mainly by the US), that a nation that seizes terriotory in war, even in a war they didnt start, cannot settle their own people on that land.

Your underlying attitude though seems to be, that conquest is the final arbiter of competing claims to land. If that is the principle that you uphold, then why criticize (some) of the Palestinians for seeking to redress their greivances through a conquest of Israel? You seem to claim that without the finality of conquest, competing claims to land would be endless. Your position undermines the arguments of those Palestinians who want to find a peaceful settlement, and supports the mindset of the fighters - i.e. there is no way to establish ones claim with any certainty other than by conquest.

MarkC -

The claim that US soldiers deliberately distributed blankets infected with smallpox is untrue and has been thoroughly debunked. It is, in fact, made up out of whole cloth.

Ah, yes, TallDave, Native Americans were frequently slaughtered out of self-defense. After all, what could be more frightening than a numerically and technologically inferior enemy who was often malnourished from having been forced to live on unproductive land and weakened from infectious diseases against which they had no natural immunity?

DougF, that was a line from a Sam Raimi movie. It's meant ironically...as in, the person saying "into the pit with those bloodthirsty sons of whores!" is...you know...demonstrating bloodthirstiness and...irony? Anyone? Eh? Eh.

Observer -

1. W/r/t Israel-proper, Israel controls the land now and has done so for more than half a century. That is good enough to erase Palastinian historical claims. W/r/t the West Bank and Gaza, Israel obtained these lands in 1967. Thereafter, the nations that formerly owned them (Egypt & Jordan) renounced any claim. Therefore, Israel owns these lands, too. At this time, the Palastinians are not a distinct, recognized nation entitled to their own lands, regardless of whether they constitute a majority of the population. They have not earned the right to have their own country.

2. Obtaining title to property by conquest clearly is an accepted common law doctrine. See, e.g., http://www.utulsa.edu/law/classes/rice/USSCT_Cases/JOHNSON_V_MCINTOSH_1823.HTM
International law is also supportive of this. Again, how many people dispute the status of Eastern Germany?

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that people who think wars of self-defense against Native American savages were "genocide" think similar thoughts about Israel's wars of self-defense against Arabs despots.

Hmmm. Instead of going over to TallDave's and stealing his stuff, I think we should just pitch a tent in his living room. Then when he reaches for his shotgun, we can instantly ascend to the moral high ground, because we will be fighting a war of self-defense. (And oh yes, god did tell me last night that in his Plan, TallDave's living room is mine!).

W/r/t Israel-proper, Israel controls the land now and has done so for more than half a century. That is good enough to erase Palastinian historical claims

Excuse me? Half a century of control erases competing claims to land? But 1800 years doesn't?
Your argument completely undermines the fundamental tenets of zionism.

After all, what could be more frightening than a numerically and technologically inferior enemy

Heh. Wait till you're out in the field working, and they grab your wife and kids and ride off with them. Then ask that question again.

Hell, ask as Israeli after a suicide bomber attacks their kids' school.

Obersevr,

If Hitler kills 4 million of your people and they need a country to be safe in, I will give you my living room.

Oh btw, this example assumes I really have very little claim to my living room to begin with, and that your people have lived there for 3000 years.

It is interesting how the ownership of land and the creation of a state seem to get mixed up. Palestine, as a seperate country with unique historical claims, has never excisted. As pointed out one of the posts the people who lived in that area have been under numerous different forms of government and the area has been called Palestine since the Romans removed the name Israel but they have always been part of other countries. Greater Syria, Egypt,transjordan, Jordan, Part of the Ottoman Empire, ect, ect, ect. Yet the argument for Palestine has always included the notion that they have the moral right to the Whole area as if they are reclaimng a country that has vast historical roots, history of kings, traditional borders.They were a district in a series of different governments and societies. Israel was created in 1948. They could claim some historical past that showed they were an Independent country. A Palestinian state is being formed in the same way that Israel was formed. Through war and international negotiation. I am a supporter of Israel but the settlements were a mistake. But that does not mean that palestine and their supporters can continue to justify the intentional targeting of civilians that have no military value or are part of a military function. The logic that All members of the State of Israel are potential soldiers and therefore they are legitimate targets is used by the palestinians and they carry out that tactic. Until they abandon that tactic they can't expect Israel to not react to their openly stated goals. They will get a state. The logic of all land returned to the palestinians and their prodigy will result in the elimination of the state of Israel. Israel will not get the whole of historical Israel in our lifetimes. Palestinians will not be able to eliminate Israel. The final offer that Clinton and Ross presented to Arafat(the final one , not the cantonized first offer) is the best they will ever do unless the wipe out the Jews.If they continue the struggle for the elimination of Israel the camps will be there 60 years from now or there will be no Jews left in Israel. Israel will not get their dream. Neither will the Palestinians. That is reality.And that will end the misery, which has become far worse then the individual loss of property.

Observer -

I explained at great length why historical claims do not confer legal ownership rights. Yet, you seem to be stuck on forcing me into support for Israel's historical claim vs. the Palastinians' historical claim. In case you did not understand what I was trying to say earlier, I will be more clear: Neither the historical claims of the Jews nor the historical claims of the Palastinians confer ownership rights in anything. Israel has ownership rights in Israel proper by virtue of the fact that it has held and controlled the land for 50+ years and governed it well, and it has ownership rights in the West Bank and Gaza by right of conquest, coupled with the renunciations by Egypt and Jordan. The Palastinians have no ownership rights for a lot of reasons, but first and foremost because their government does not seem to have the ability to exercise actual control over much of anything and because it has badly mismanaged things when given the chance.

Ben -

No argument. I'm no expert, but even without that particular piece of evidence, I still believe that the Indians periodically suffered genocide at the hands of white settlers and soldiers. I don't believe the whole thing can be called self-defense, or casualties of war. Given the expansionism and intense hunger for land, given that the Indians were a despised and unwanted group, who were also hostile and frequently committed atrocities themselves, given that it all took place in remote, unsupervised areas, it would be very surprising if something resembling genocide didn't take place. I don't have any political agenda here, just a desire to see the thing in its proper light.

And, btw, Zionism is an ideology. Part of its ideology was/is recovery of traditional lands and establishment of the State of Israel. An ideology does not convey ownership rights, although it may motivate people to attempt to obtain ownership rights. In attempting to superimpose Zionism onto a discussion of ownership rights, you are setting up a straw man so that you can knock him down.

MarkC -

And I don't disagree that, whether intentionally or not, something akin to genocide may have happened at some point during the Indian Wars. My point is that it is now more than 100 years after the last of the Indian Wars ended. Every single person who participated in them is almost certainly dead. The Indians lost. Thus, they now have no claim to the land or to any compensation for it, and they have only the rights the victors choose to give them.

There seems to be some confusion about the difference between spectacularly brutal warfare and genocide. You can say, correctly, that a given act during the course of a conflict is excessive or disproportionate, but that is not the same thing as genocide. Genocide is a fairly clear cut, binary phenomenon. When it comes down to cases expansion across North America does not fill the requirements of genocide. Specifically, there are two indicators that should be considered. First, during the ‘Indian Wars’ there were numerous occasions that white settlers would fight with one tribe against another tribe, or even pay one tribe to fight another. This is not consistent with genocide – the willing and deliberate pursuit of a policy intended to result in the complete and total eradication of ethno-linguistic group. The second element of note is the notion of broken treaties and events such as the “Trail of Tears.” A group engaged in committing a genocide does not go about the business of doing things like even creating treaties (even if they are later broken) or permitting survivors to march to new territory. In both cases a group engaged in genocide doesn’t spend time dictating terms to or expelling people when there is simple killing to be done instead.

None of this is to say that all was idyllic, peaceful, and happy, but rather that the term genocide is (in general) thrown around too lightly and in this case, incorrectly. In applying the term here incorrectly, one ends up with the unfortunate possibility of having to declare something more genocidal than something else. Genocide should not admit to superlatives – genocidier, genocidiest. It is a concept that is (and rightly so) viewed as being an absolute evil. To toss around the term to describe what is, in essence, brutal warfare between two wildly mismatched opponents is to devalue the term when applied to the real thing, such as Rwanda.

Loving the battle between the Commenter and TallDave. My scoring using the 10 point must win system after 5 rounds.... Tall Dave 46, Commenter 49. TallDave, throwing in that comment about the Navajo, being wrong about it and then quickly backpedalling as if your front tire was on fire... that nearly got you a TKO! Remember the first rule of holes ... when you're in one, stop digging.

Michael -- I appreciate your reasonable and thougtful post.

all --
Palestinians are reluctant to settle down in Gaza and whatever part of the West Bank they are eventually granted for the same reason the Cherokees were a little less than enthusiastic about settling in Oklahoma. Their historical homeland was mostly present day Israel, not the West Bank or Gaza. And their "trail of tears" -- in their case, a fifty-five years and counting pitstop in refugee camps -- has been a bitch. It's sad and true that other Arab nations didn't care about these displaced peoples, but it's also true that neither do most Americans and most Israelis.

A discontinuous Palestinian state in Gaza and part of West Bank is a problematic solution. I think a better outcome would have returned Gaza to Egypt, and east Jerusalem and the West Bank to Jordan. And in a saner world, some Jewish settlers could stay in the West Bank (the real heart of biblical Israel), perhaps in exchange for allowing some reciprocal return of refugees to resettle in Israel itself. But apparently these are not realistic options at this point in time.

Ben -- Agreed: Palestinians have no more right to sovereignty than any other stateless group unable to project the necessary force to impose it's will on its neighbors. Also agreed: Israel has the "right" to hold on to Gaza and West Bank, or any other territory it can win for itself. What Israel CANNOT do is claim to be "the only democracy in the Middle East" while denying the political rights given to Israeli Arabs to the Arabs living in the territories. THAT was the insane hope of post-1967, pre-intifada Israel: that Palestinians could be induced to indefinately accept some sort of "autonomy" under Israel military rule. This hope was a Labor Party article of faith until the early nineties, and a Likud party article of faith until Sharon's aboutface last year. Remember, between June 1967 and Oslo, only the Israeli ultra-left supported a two-state solution.

Ben -

Oh, I agree about no compensation, it was never about that, but just about historical accuracy, with all its moral underpinnings.

You are also right in dismissing Observer's comment. This is an old propoganda trick, to claim that Israel bases its right to exist solely on an ancient historical connection. Makes Israel appear as a fatuous dream cooked up by religious crackpots. As you say, a straw man easily knocked down. Like all clever lies, it contains an element of truth. However, the existence of the modern state of Israel owes far more to Hitler than to King David.

I like your right of conquest argument, although clearly not practical (or moral) to exercise dominion over three and a half million Arabs. I'd rather use it to annex the Golan Heights. Nice piece of real estate, totally unpopulated except a handful of Druze villages who would give their eyeteeth to remain in Israel. The Syrians don't need it, only ever used it as a staging area for attacking Israel. Of course, the world being what it is, we'll probably have to deal it back in exchange for a piece of paper, when the Syrians finally decide they're ready to let Israel exist. Weary sigh...

It's important to remember that the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which is international law, defines genocide as:

"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

© Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

All of these were carried out, at some point or another, by the colonial powers, by their successor states in the Americas, and by individuals within those states. Yes, it was genocide.

But please, continue parsing words. Was it a really, really nasty war in which entire peoples just happened to dissapear? Woops, where'd they go? Maybe if we kill more of their women and children, or force them on another death march, or take their children to be raised by whites, or drive them onto unproductive land or wipe out their major food sources in an attempt to starve them, or order our troops to lay waste to their homes, they'll all come back!

Please, continue to quibble. I enjoy watching people come to the defense of genoicide when recognizing it would happen to be inconvenient to your identity or something like that.

Markus -

Amazingly enough, I agree with nearly everything you say in your 1:26 p.m. post, and I will expand as follows: Israeli policy toward the "occupied" territories was unsustainable. From a pragmatic p.o.v., Israel really only ever had two choices w/r/t the West Bank and Gaza: (1) Keep the territories and send all or most of the Arabs living there to Egypt, Jordan or whatever country would take them; or (2) Give the territories back to the Arabs. Rather than deal with the territories in 1967, Israel chose to kick the ball down the field and put off making a decision. In retrospect, this proved to be a stupid decision (and perhaps the Israelis should have known it at the time). King Hussein was extremely shrewd when he renounced Jordan's claim to the West Bank, because he simultaneously enormously increased the pressure on Israel and divested himself of a group of people who had only ever caused problems for his regime. In any event, Israel's failure to bite the bullet in or near 1967 made a bad situation considerably worse (although I doubt it would have ended the ME wars regardless of what Israel did re the West Bank and Gaza).

The solution you suggest as the ideal is without question the best possible solution, IMHO. As you point out, however, it is very unlikely this would occur, perhaps most tragically (for the Palestinians) because neither Egypt nor Jordan has any desire to take on this problem. In fact, both Egypt and Jordan have been cynically exploiting the Palestinians for years - fanning the flames against Israel to keep their own corrupt regimes in power. Neither side has covered itself in glory, but particularly potent venom should be reserved for the Arab "leaders" in other countries who continue to keep things stirred up between Israel and the Palestinians.

committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group

Still haven't seen a scrap of evidence to support that "intent to destroy."

I'm also unclear why you're so invested in proving American settlers were vicious genocidal maniacs. Do you have some unresolved anger issues?

Jim,

I'm not backtracking one iota. My point was always that not all Indians made war on whites, esp. many Navajo.

Commenter, your points are so ridiculous when held up to historical context. Either every ethnic war ever fought was "genocide," in which case the label is meaningless, or the settlers didn't commit genocide but rather acted to defend themselves from a threat that was, tragically for both sdes, not cohesive enough to prevent its members from raiding them.

Again, it's easy to st here in 2005 and scream "GENOCIDE!!! GENOCIDE!!!" at people who lived very very hard lives hundreds of years ago. I suspect in their placve you'd have done no better.

MarkC -

Agreed. I would add two points: (1) W/r/t dominion over the Arabs, see my response to Markus. In short, the Israelis should never have even tried to do so. (2) You are right about the Golan Heights, but I'm sure Israel would be happy to give it back in exchange for peace with Syria because it would no longer have any value to Israel if there really were peace with Syria.

Like all clever lies, it contains an element of truth. However, the existence of the modern state of Israel owes far more to Hitler than to King David

Speaking of clever lies. The zionist movement managed to get a middle-eastern homeland promised to them by the British colonialists while Hitler was still fantasizing about becoming a great artist.

And Ben. I understood your point quite well. You argue that ownership rights come with conquest and control. And ideology merely inspires people to sometimes make ownership claims when they dont in fact exist. By that logic, the zionists made totally illegitimate claims to land over which any ownership rights they might have had were "erased" 1800 years ago. But that did not stop them of course, and they created facts on the ground, with force if necessary, to wrest ownership rights through conquest and control.

It is, I admit, a realistic view of political conflict, but also an amoral one. Perhaps I confused your position with those who claim that Israel has some moral high-ground position.

The fact that the Palestinian ownership rights have been "erased", as you put it, means nothing. They would be well advised, by your logic, to view that lack of ownership rights as totally irrelevant. Take the land by force, if possible, create new facts, conquer and establish control, and with that control will come ownership rights.

It is a logic that the Palestinian extremists would be perfectly comfortable with. That was my point.

The greatest irony of all of this, the aspect of it that no one seems to be acknowledging, is that none of any of this would have been possible had it not been for George W. Bush.

Ariel Sharon even publicly said as much last Friday...
"I've reached a deal with the Americans. I prefer a deal with the Americans to a deal with the Arabs."

Yes, the most right-wing American president since before the dawn of The New Deal has talked a right-wing Israeli prime minister into backing the mother of all left-wing causes: leaving territories occupied in the Six-Day War. If all goes well, if it inevitably leads to the formation of a Palestinian state down the line, stop and think about it.....

A hundred years from now, that will be the lasting legacy of George W. Bush. It blows my mind!

The wiki entry on Israel's creation is interesting as well. It seems to say that at the time of Israel's establishment, about half of "Palestine" was settled by Jews, so in the wake of the Holocaust they said "OK, we'll make half of this a Jewish state." Seems fair.

Of course today, we're talking not so much about the difference between two ethnicities, but the difference between a free and democratic nation that wants to live in peace versus several oppressive tyrannical states that want Israel destroyed.

I think Sharon has the right idea: let the "victim" Pals establish their own state, then sit back and laugh as they collectively choke on their own bile.

Commentator -

Does it make any difference to you that the convention you refer to didn't even exist at the time to which you seek to apply it?

Conquests and Cultures is a good read for anyone interested in conflicts between Europeans and Native Americans. The Commenter, it will not always fit into your worldview but it is a good book.

No it doesn't Ben.

I suppose defenders of the noble savages during the Revolution are not troubled by the fact that the Iroquois in question had formally allied with the British, and that the Iroquois in question cooperated with British troops in raids against American settlements.

Why their status as Indians should exclude them from the consequences of making war on the Americans isn't clear to me.

Source.

Rather than deal with the territories in 1967, Israel chose to kick the ball down the field and put off making a decision

Why not deal honestly with what happened? What happened was that the Likud party came to power in Israel, and thier policy was founded on the notion of establishing a "greater Israel" - i.e. soemthing damn close to your option number one. This party managed to put forth two former terrorist leaders, Begin and Shamir, as prime ministers, and had as a driving force for the settlement of the territories, Ariel Sharon. It wasnt zionism per se, or Israel in general, but the policies of this rightwing party that has delayed a resolution of the situation for a generation, and counting.

The demographic realities were apparent all along. Within a "greater Israel" the only options were an ethnic cleansing of the Arabs, or an apartheid system in which the Arabs would not be given equal political right. Or, of course, the end of Israel as a jewish state. This is the insane policy that Sharon et.al. followed for the past quarter century, egged on by RW idiots here in the US.

You want another possible solution? Why didnt the Israelis do in the terrotories something akin to what the US did in Japan and Germany? Having defeated the political leadership that attacked us, we decided, for our own interests, and in keeping with our moral principles, to help the people of those countries develop a democratic system by which they could govern their own land. We did not send American settlers to Japan and Germany. And we were dealing with countries whose people had participated, through their governing ideologies, in atrocities far worse than anything the Palestinians have ever come up with. Yet we made clear to the people of those countries that we had no designs on their land or their wealth (whatever was left of it), and that we simply were going to help them, as a people, through democracy, establish a viable government.

I dont pretend that the Israelis would have found some overwhelming support and graditude from the Palestinian people for this. They would have had the right to maintain military control until such time they were assured that the new democracy was in control, and of good intent. Perhaps they would still be exerting control today. But most likely not, for the entire dynamic would have been different.

Political leadership aside, most Palestinians, like most people everywhere, want to have peaceful and proseperous lives with basic dignity and political participation in the affairs of their homeland. This is a fundamental insight that Americans champion - it is, in fact, an arguement that Bush and the conservatives use as the basis of their worldview. Had the Palestinians seen such an attiude from the Israelis over the past generation, things would have been different. How different would be a matter of great debate, I'm sure.

I find it interesting that so many of the same people who espouse this Bush worldview, and apply it to people like the Iraqis (none of whom, including the sainted Kurds, are unfamiliar with terrorism) refuse to see the Palestinians in the same light. They, perhaps unique in the world, are not to be considered normal people. They are all demons who dont deserve the divine endowment we claim is the birthright of all other humans.

Observer -

You have managed to miss the point almost completely. Therefore, I'll shout it: FORGET ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED OR DIDN'T HAPPEN YEARS AGO. Start with "now" and give no consideration to how we got here. If a country controls a piece of territory and governs it well, it has the moral right to keep on doing so, and those who try to change it are wrong. (This doesn't apply to countries that do not govern well or that don't play nicely in the international sandbox).

In addition, you misrepresent what happened in 1948. At that time, the rightful owner of the British mandate of Palestine gave a portion of Palestine to the Jews and a portion to the Arabs, consistent with "facts on the ground" and its ownership rights. Also, the world was looking to establish a Jewish homeland at the time. At the time, everyone (i.e., the government in control of Palestine, the "World," and the Jews) but the Arabs agreed with this two-state solution. Since 1948, the Arabs have consistently rejected a two-state solution in the ME. Their claim to the moral high ground is extremely dubious.

Grant makes a good point. This will leave the Israeli Left scratching their heads.Sharon the Butcher has achieved the impossible. Without the settlers to rail on about,the Left might just have to focus on the Palestinians. And that is just no fun at all.

Observer -

Again, for you it all comes down the the fault of the right wing. Notwithstanding the fact that NOBODY in government in Israel supported a different policy until long after 1967, it's all the right's fault. I'm tempted to say who cares, on the basis that it's stupid to argue whose at fault when we should be concentrating on fixing the problem, but Orwell noted why history is important in this regard. The fact of the matter is, as Markus noted above, that virtually everyone in the Israeli political establishment, Likud and Labor alike, supported the settlements policy from 1967 until long after it was too late to change policies without paying a severe cost. The US Government, Republican & Democrat, has consistently supported Israel during that same time period.

The Iraq situation and the Palestinian situation are materially different. I would think that since lefties never met a nuance they didn't like, you would understand this. Moreover, this is a huge can of worms and is way off target, so I have no intention of discussing it now.

Just an observation:

At the time that Abu Graehb became a household (and very often mispelled, maybe even here) word, with the publication of the leash/nudie/hooded pics, the incidents of abuse and failures in command and discipline had been under investigation by DoD as a routine matter of violations of the UCMJ.

Got that? The organization directly responsible for administering the facility had become aware of improper actions some six months before the PR storm, and was using the existing mechanisms built into itself to deal with the infractions.

Now in other places, like the Palestinian territories, when somebody in authority dispatches uniformed police to shoot up Israelis or provide security for terrorist bomb and rocket factories, just what happens to them?

They get promoted.

There is good and evil in the world. To attempt to crucify U.S./coalition actions (or, as happens just as often, America as an institution)in Iraq or Afghanistan every time we fail of perfection in any venue, anywhere, anytime, is as dishonest an intellectual act as there can be.

We aren't perfect. Adults admit that fact and then get up every day and attempt to get it right anyway. We are fighting a war against an opposition that categorically denies just about every foundational concept of western civ even before embracing murder and terror as weapons. To reject just cause for vigorously and forthrightly defending ourselves based on isolated, abberant acts that we already reject as a society, and condemn and prosecute under our laws is insane.

War is the ultimate ugliness. Go ask a vet about the Bulge, the grass fields of Saipan,the caves of Cu Chi, or the hills of Korea.

To live in a world of peace and law we must confront and defeat those whose existence pivots on despotism and barbarism. This is as true today as it was in 1942.

Consider our history: Our one overt adventure in European style foreign colonialism, complete with global military confrontation and occupation of conquered territories, was the Spanish American
War.

Regardless of the sugar and other financial interests that supported the war from their boardrooms the motivating factor that drove most of the nation (just thirty years past the bloodiest war in our history) was a call to liberate Cuba from European domination. That we ended up with the Philippines as well was a perceived bonus until the nation began to understand that administering colonies meant that we would in actuality be replacing one dictatorship with another.

Public support collapsed. There was no broad interest in ruling anyone else - that was antiethical to the core of American values. BUT - the recognition that our role as victors left it incumbent on us to clean up our own messes eventually resulted in the founding of representative, sovereign governments in both places. That was because individual citizens here voted in support of policies that made those governments possible.

Time fills. Cuba eventually collapsed into dictatorship. The Philippines... well, check back in a week or two. Since the end of the Spanish American War we have fought in and been the deciding factor in three world wars and now find ourselves engaged in a fourth; the third war lasted from 1945 and may or may not be entirely won, but at least the Soviet Union is no longer on the board.

Today we do not fight for empire - but only to defend what freedoms we hold as our inalienable rights. These rights which we so often take for granted result in individual security and a median standard of living incomprehensible to most individuals outside our borders. One product of this stability that we enjoy is at the crux of what aggravates our enemy most: that we don't take them seriously.

Why should we, really? In the fantasy world of multiculturalism all systems are declared equal and deserving of respect, regardless of demonstrated failure to perform effectively in improving the lot of their citizens/subjects/victims. One school of thought would have us apologize for being the richest, most powerful nation on earth, the direct result of encouraging the utmost achievement of individuals in their own pursuits of happiness and backing up that encouragement by a system of just laws and constitutional government, in order to somehow assume the onus of failure for other populations that practice totalitarian or other stripes of despotic cultures.

War is one of the very few human events that can be truly zero sum. The line between winners and losers is measured by lives.

To try to frame our success as a nation as merely the product of exploitation of others is a cornerstone of progressive thought. The reality is that terrorists, mullahs, Mexican poverty, declining European economies, and African dictators aren't the product of our soccer moms driving SUV's. An absence of individual civic responsibility for just self-government is the root cause, and this situation is not the fault of Red State One Eyebrowed Banjo Pickers Of 2005. Up until the ratification of our constitution a short couple of hundred years ago autocratic rule and cyclical wars of aggression or conquest were the norm for states as small as pirate bands right up to the superpowers of the day.

That norm began to change a short century ago, directly as a byproduct of this maginificent experiment we (speaking for American citizens here) are involved in.

I think that a large portion of our political angst at confronting the evil that threatens us manifests because individual liberty is such a new concept species-wise; it surely isn't natural when viewed against the bulk of human history. And that it feels damned unpleasant for us to have to step back from our chosen path of peace and law in order to effectively confront those who would pull us back down to their dungeons is only natural when you consider how full and satisfying our lives our when compared to those of the enemy.

Sorry for the length. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I am one fourth Sioux. I'm darned grateful that my ancestors took up city life, too, thank you very much.

I believe that any man can pick up the burden of self government. I also believe that lending a hand in pursuit of that goal is a noble act.

Again, time fills.

Start with "now" and give no consideration to how we got here. If a country controls a piece of territory and governs it well, it has the moral right to keep on doing so

Israel does not govern the territories well. They should move the wall back to the green line, negotiate some exceptions for long-established settlements, involving some land trades, but otherwise get the hell out of the territories. End of story. It would also be in their interest, and ours, and the worlds, to assist the normal palestinians to create the kind of society that would minimize any chance of terrorist finding a haven.
That "now" enough for you?

Likud and Labor alike, supported the settlements policy from 1967 until long after it was too late to change policies without paying a severe cost. The US Government, Republican & Democrat, has consistently supported Israel during that same time period

The US government, republican and democrat, has consistently opposed the settlements project. At least when speaking of principle. In practice, we never exerted any real pressure for them to stop, and it is this profound hypocrisy, between our stated principles and our actions, that has not gone unnoticed around the world, and is why our moral pronouncements on the subject are found totally uncredible by most of the world.

Observer -

Again, it comes back to "it's our fault." We may not have done everything we could have done to fix the problem of the West Bank and Gaza, but we sure as hell didn't create it.

Re: "Israel does not govern the territories well. They should move the wall back to the green line, negotiate some exceptions for long-established settlements, involving some land trades, but otherwise get the hell out of the territories. End of story."

Israel may or may not govern the territories well, but the Palestinians haven't done much to show they could do it better. Your solution denies the realities on the ground. Moving back to the green line is not realistic, under the circumstances, does not comport with which groups are living where or with real-life security concerns, and is unlikely to accomplish anything positive. Furthermore, it would effectively reward the Palestinians for their intransigence.

A negotiated peace is the ultimate goal, but it is unlikely to happen anytime soon because the Palestinians aren't serious about wanting peace. The Arab world has yet to accept Israel's right to exist. In that environment, how is peace possible? As was pointed out above, the last deal offered to Arafat was the best deal the Palestinians could ever hope to get absent wiping out Israel. Arafat rejected the deal out of hand. What are we to make of that rejection?

The only realistic strategy for Israel today is the strategy being pursued. Draw a line in a place convenient for defensive purposes, build a wall along that line, and keep the respective parties separated. The Palestinians forfeited any right to participate in the process when they left the negotiating table and launched a war. They thought they could get a better deal by violence. So far that hasn't happened, so they will have to live with the consequences of their apparent miscalculation.

I've been a little surprised at the reactions that I've seen, like in this entry by Mr. Totten, and other places, at this news.

I was just thinking at work this afternoon that if it had been a Democrat, like Clinton or Gore, in the White House, many of those who were backing this policy may be opposed to it. I don't think that that would necessarily be the case with Mr. Totten, though, since he is a prinicipled liberal Democrat; it may be the case with some Republicans though.

I've gotta laugh whenever I hear about poor, defenseless, little Israel being beset on all sides by those seeking to destroy them. Are there nasty countries around them that would like to see them destroyed? Yes. How capable are they? Not very. Israel is the military juggernaut in the region. You could combine the militaries of every country surrounding Israel and they wouldn't come close to matching Israel's military might. This is not even factoring in the nuclear warheads they have ready just in case! And don't forget their biggest ally either. If somehow Israel was ever seriously threatened, guess who'd be there to back them up? The most powerfull nation to ever exist on this planet would be, that's who. So please cut the crap about the very existence of the state of Israel being at stake. Israel would decorate the region with mushroom clouds before it came close to that.

Again, it comes back to "it's our fault." We may not have done everything we could have done to fix the problem of the West Bank and Gaza, but we sure as hell didn't create it

Again we have recourse to the standard trope that any criticism of the US amounts to a claim that we are the root of all problems in the world. Where exactly did I claim that we created the problem? Quite the contrary, I seem to have gone out of my way to place the bulk of the responsibility not on the US, or zionism, or Israel, but on one particular party in Israel.

it would effectively reward the Palestinians for their intransigence

Their intransigence with regard to not giving up the last vestiges of their homeland in the face of the great "moral" imperative of a "greater israel" is deserving of respect, at the very least.

The Arab world has yet to accept Israel's right to exist

Egypt has, for 25 years now. Jordan has. The Palestinians have. Even the Saudis offered to make a formal recognition as part of an overall peace.

the last deal offered to Arafat was the best deal the Palestinians could ever hope to get

Not true. It left many issues, regarding water rights and other matters of the kind, including some fudged up acknowledgement of at least a theoretical right of some Palestininas to return to their home (very important to the Pal people) unresolved. He should have made a counter offer, no doubt.

Lets be honest here. The Clinton-Barak-Arafat near-deal was enormously valuable in terms of laying out in detail, what most everyone sensed, and most now acknowledge is the obvious long term solution. The leaders may well have been somewhat ahead of their people though. Arafat needed something, anything, on the Palestinian right of return because his people demanded it. And of course there were many Palestinians who were not prepared to really make a settlement that reflected the principles lai