Another Suicide Attack

[LeonardoDaVinci]

There has been another suicide attack in a Tel Aviv club a couple of hours ago. So far 16 people have been killed and 50 injured. I have to say that I am hardly surprised, for every action there's a reaction. I do offer my condolences for the families of those killed.

[I LOVE HO CHI MINH]

We have to solve this goddam violence issue in the Middle-East. I think Israel is being to hostile with Palestine, and USA dont help nothing giving money to Sahron to continue violence

[LeonardoDaVinci]

What I find exremely rediculous is the fact that every time a suicide bomber strikes, both the israelis and the americans use it as an opportunity to attack Arafat and demand for a replacement. I mean don't get me wrong, Arafat ain't no saint, and in fact I never liked him in the first place, but nevertheless, it doesn't take a genius to realise that a person who's been in house arrest for almost two months has no means of power or authority whatsoever, especially after the destruction of the palestinian security force HQ by the Israelis.

Also, I just wonder whether the israelis really thought that the Palestinians were just going to lie down after what the IDF did to them in Nablus and Jenin and just smile about it and say to themselves "oh well, shit happens"?

[Derar]

What's more radiculus is that the israeli army destroyed almost every palestinian police headquarter ........ took almost most of their weapons , arrested thousands of the policemen and killed hundreds ....... and then they demand the palestinian authority to stop the terrorism !!
and bush repeats like an idiot " Yeah Sharon is right "

[guerrillaradio]

I'm disgusted...just when peace seemed like a real possibility in the Middle East. Sharon was about to agree to end the seige of the Church of Nativity, tanks were leaving the West Bank, and then some dumb fuck blows himself up in a working class nightclub!! What the fuck is he trying to acheive?? He obviously doesn't want peace...fuck all suicide bombers.

[Derar]

What peace r u talking about ??

Getting in a refugee camp , massacring the residents , destroying the whole refugee camp ....... get out and then demand peace !!
Is that what u call peace ?!

Things dont work that way !

Until Facists like sharon r in power , and have supporters ....... they will never be peace.

The suice bombing is just a reaction ...... just a little revenge for all the ppl killed in the past month .

And The official failure of the israeli invasion .

[guerrillaradio]

Well at least the Israeli tanks were leaving areas of Palestine, at least Arafat had his four month seige lifted...hell, they were even getting Sharon on a fucking negotiating table!!! And then these senseless idiots decide to blow themselves up...I find your concept of "revenge" quite disgusting to be honest. It's all very well to call Sharon a "fascist", but he was starting to lighten up over the last couple of weeks...

[LeonardoDaVinci]

All I know is that there can be no peace while Sharon is in power, he's an ex-general and he will always be a man more willing to fight than to negotiate peace. As for Arafat, well, I think he's taken the Palestinians as far as he can, and it'd time for a new younger, stronger and more enlightened leadership, and most importantly, one which is not determined by Israel and her dear old *****, the US of A.

Also peace in the region can never be achieved as long as the US acts as the peace broker, the EU must for once use its leverage in the international arena. The US is percieved by palestinians and most arab nations - and rightly so - as being heavily biased towards israel. It is time for a UN peace-keeping mission.

As Robert Fisk says in today's Independent: "Ariel Sharon's 'peace' plan presented to President Bush in Washington last night - get rid of Arafat, devise a more obedient Palestinian Authority and keep building settlements for Jews and Jews only on Palestinian land - is fantasy.

Guerillaradio, everyone wants peace. But there's a unique distinction between peace for the sake of peace regardless of who the victim is and a genuine and just peace. The one sharon wants and is advocating was the former. I am sure that for for many of us who live in Europe and the US, our vision of peace is one where we do not hear about suicide bombs and army incursions everyday, regardless of the inhumane and deplorable treatment the palestinians still receive on a regular basis. That peace makes us feel good about ourselves, as we try to deceive ourselves into believe that everything is rosy when it is not. That way we do not have to feel guilty everytime we switch on the TV to find out that several people have been killed whilst we all turn a blind eye, it is a selfish peace that I do not wish to see implemented.

Like I said so many times before, the Israelis have the right to live in peace as any human being does. However, they cannot expect to attain such peace while they continue to vote for war criminals such as Menachim Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Ariel Sharon, knowing very well the suffering that these despots will inflict on the Palestinians. The Palestinians might have accepted it in the past in the faint hope of peace, but no more.

[El Che]

Personaly I think Arafat is a fool. In that he continues to agree to "negociate". He should just resign and refuse to continue to try and negociate with murders and terrorists.

[guerrillaradio]

Quote: from LeonardoDaVinci on 2:06 pm on May 8, 2002
Guerillaradio, everyone wants peace. But there's a unique distinction between peace for the sake of peace regardless of who the victim is and a genuine and just peace. The one sharon wants and is advocating was the former.

Agreed, but at least Sharon was willing to negotiate up until yesterday. I mean, at least he was showing signs of considering 'peace' (in whatever form it takes) up until yesterday. Am I gonna be the only person who condemns this suicide bombing??

I agree that Arafat should resign, but I don't know who could succeed him. He may well be the best person Palestine have for the job.

I'm interested in your (DaVinci's) idea of the EU getting involved. In what form would you like them to act and how would their actions better the USA's??

[LeonardoDaVinci]

Let's get this straight, I do condemn this suicide bombing and I have condemned every suicide bombing up to date. Killing innocent civilians is wrong and cannot be justified objectively. However, like I said many times before, in order to stop this devastating cycle of suicide attacks you have to give the Palestinians some kind of hope that a genuine and just peace can be achieved. You just simply cannot go on and demolish their shanty houses, loot whatever little possessions they might have left, kill so many of them and then just expect them to extend their hands in peace. That deplorable and humiliating treatment might possibly work with a dog whom you want to force into submission, but it can never achieve anything with a people that have nothing to lose.

Israelis and pro-Israelis often claim that the Palestinians were offered such a chance in Camp David but it was Arafat who turned down the offer and instead chose the path of "terror". Barak talked about his unprecedented concessions and the 96% of Palestinian land that he had offered to give back. This supposed unparalleled Israeli "generosity" had become the accepted account of things in the United States. However, the truth is that never was an offer. According to those 'bases' discussed, Palestine would have sovereignty over 91 percent of the West Bank; Israel would annex 9 percent of the West Bank and, in exchange, Palestine would have sovereignty over parts of pre-1967 Israel equivalent to 1 percent of the West Bank, but with no indication of where either would be.

However, there is a much bigger problem. They were only offering 91% of the West Bank, not 91% of the land occupied in 1967. They never talks about the Gaza Strip of which one-third is still under occupation and he never defines what the Israelis meant by 91% of the West Bank. Israeli governments doesn't consider Greater Jerusalem as part of the West Bank. Left out of the equation was Arab east Jerusalem - illegally annexed by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six Day War - the huge belt of illegally built Jewish settlements, including Male Adumim, around the city as well as those scattered in the West Bank, and a 10-mile wide military buffer zone around the Palestinian territories. Therefore, the total Palestinian land from which Israel was prepared to withdraw came to only around 46 per cent of the Palestinian land occupied in 1967. The Occupied Territories are 22% just of pre-'48 Palestine. So the entire "unprecedented" offer is about 10% of the original land of Palestine. Not to mention that the Israelis were not even prepared to talk about the right of return for the refugees.

When Sharon came to power, he made it very clear that he will not even entertain the thought of making half as many "concessions" as Barak did. His idea of peace is forcing the Palestinians into submission, and we have already witnessed his methods of obtaining peace.

As for Europe, well it holds a very important economic leverage, as 70% of Israel's exports are purchased by the EU (Not entirely sure about the figure, but it's roughly right). Not to mention the preferential economic treatment they receive in terms of lower taxes on imports and exports. Consequently, an EU trade embargo can have a devastating effect on the already faltering Israeli economy. Moreover, the EU is perceived by Palestinians and Arabs alike - and rightly so - as a more neutral negotiating partner than the US (that's why the Israelis are opposed to the idea). And therefore, they will be more willing to sit down and pursue peace, in the knowledge that the Israeli version of concessions will not (as it always has) determine the negotiations.

As for now, well I believe that is is absolutely imperative that a UN peacekeeping force must be dispatched immediately; something the Palestinians have been requesting for decades whilst the Israeli government has vehemently opposed (for obvious reasons). The US government has had more than enough chances to establish its peace brokering credentials as a fair and influential judge, and it has failed disastrously at that task. Whether the Israelis and Americans like it or not, It is time for the EU and the UN to take the centre stage.

(Edited by LeonardoDaVinci at 12:32 am on May 9, 2002)

[guerrillaradio]

Quote: from LeonardoDaVinci on 12:25 am on May 9, 2002
As for now, well I believe that is is absolutely imperative that a UN peacekeeping force must be dispatched immediately...

I think that it would be unfair to send a peackeeping force to an area where there is no peace. The soldiers would presumably be there in a neutral capacity, and they would find it very difficult to retain that neutrality once there. Also, the risk to life would be incredible...

[Derar]

That's the most stupid comment i've heard in a long time ......

just exactly the same excuse sharon makes for not bringing in UN peacekeeping forces ...... which will stop in a way the massacres of the palestinian civilians .

[guerrillaradio]

That's just pure conjecture. You don't know that at all. UN peacekeeping forces are designed to do just that, keep PEACE not war. I am all for aid workers and medics to be everywhere in the Middle East, but I think soldiers would be a mistake. They are merely more targets for both sides...