The Feb. 2005 Israeli-Palestinian truce

i wonder what the israeli response will be to an extremist action over the next couple of weeks. will they say "we know this is outwith the peace protest, we must not respond to such provocation" or will they send the tanks back in...

I haven't been following events out there as closely lately so I don't have any fixed ideas on what's going on at the moment. I certainly think that current events are interesting, but I'm not sure if they'll lead anywhere.

I'm also interested by some recent Israeli court judgement which has led to the novel situation of it no longer being automatically legal for the Israeli state to steal the property of Palestinians. Mad buzz.

Only then can progress be made. None will be made if they and their supporters/apologists try point-scoring on an ideological or a playground basis.

I'm also interested by some recent Israeli court judgement which has led to the novel situation of it no longer being automatically legal for the Israeli state to steal the property of Palestinians.

This would be an overturning of ONE application of the Absentee Property Law, which in this case was the correct law to apply since the land in question is in East Jerusalem (i.e. part of Israel) while the landowners live in the West Bank (i.e. not part of Israel). This is but one example of DOZENS of similar decisions to overturn land seizures of BOTH Jewish and Arab-owned land due to the June 2004 Israeli High Court decision to reroute the security fence. Of course, on ILX it's all about some blanket principle where its "automatically legal" to steal Palestinian land.

As for the truce, it's good to think positive. As opposed to what most media report, the violence hasn't stopped. The IDF still thwarts its typical two or three attacks per week and Qassam rockets are being launched with the same frequency that they were before Abbas' election, and he continues to not care about those attacks. The only difference is that the rockets luckily haven't killed anybody in about a month.

We'll see what happens in July when the PA has parliamentary elections . Right now its just Abbas and his buddies in parliament, we'll see what happens when July rolls around and 30-40 of his closest friends are replaced with Hamas members and he has to deal with his enemies in parliament just like real leaders do.

Explain to me, slowly if possible, how exactly Palestinians are in any way responsible for expulsions of Jews from Arab states?

http://www.memri.org/cartoons/images/3_000086-.jpg

Fortunately the Palestinians are so Lilliputian, so he doesn't have to be in good shape to crush them. He's probably got room to suffocate a couple of them under his man boobs as well.

however, if the Butcher of Beirut's change of heart is sincere, there's really nobody else I'd rather have kicking the Gaza settler lunatics' asses. Peres certainly couldn't do it.

Go look some shit up, smart guy, you might learn something. And I'll spare you your next retarded "go ahead and peddle the Zionist party line" comeback by noting that what I wrote is verifiable fact, while what you wrote is nothing but speculation and bullshit. I'm not the one talking out of my ass here.

He's probably got room to suffocate a couple of them under his man boobs as well.

this, however, is a verifiable assertion. Let us put it to the test!

"Often" -- no. Start by finding me one example.

Sometimes I use sarcasm to make a point, sure (btw, the writing behind Sharon in the cartoon reads "Gaza"). So what? But "a lot" of what I write on ILX about Israel is simply a response to other people's egregious errors in fact.

it wouldn't have surprised me to see a cartoon of Osama Bin Laden drinking the blood of americans. But I don't live in America and thus don't read the newspapers there.

my point really is that there is a difference between attacking the leader of a country and attacking the entire ethnic group that that person belongs to.

Holy fuck, you're dumb. There are even Wikipedia pages on these things

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

Also, I don't trust your ability to "recall" anything, link to story please, WITH FOLLOW-UP that clarifies that the apparently innocent boy/men weren't "farming" in a field carrying guns and explosives while making their way toward soldiers or border crossings.

DV -- have you seen the Anti-Semitic cartoons that regularly run all over the Arab world? (of course, such rhetoric doesn't stop at cartoons, but since we've been mentioning cartoons ...)

Speaking of media, one of the first things Abbas promised after he was elected was to make the Palestinian media more free (right now its content is tightly controlled by the PA. Of course, Abbas had no problem in using that control to help get himself elected by having the media focus mainly on him during the campaign). So, here comes the big peace conference ... held in Egypt ... lots of Arab media there ... and he bans the Palestinian media from covering the event. From covering their own peace conference! Nice start, Mr. Prime Minister.

Fine, but this is the last time I respond to you. There's obviously no answer I could give that will satisfy you, but perhaps others will be interested in reading these things.

IDF and PA security forces to work together to thwart attacks

PA deploys police in Gaza

Abbas: "sure I'll send the police in, but I have no intention of confronting terror groups. I'll just pray that they don't kill anybody before I can negotiate a cease fire ... "

... um, unless they kill me first".

Recent attacks on Israeli military and civilians

Visit IMRA's site for recent stories about a) PA warning terrorists to get away instead of arresting them (story Feb 5, incident one week earlier), b) the IDF suspending their hunts for various people (Feb 6), c) PA TV stating that the goal is still to destroy Israel (Feb 8, sermon given on Feb 4), and d) characatures of Sharon as a butcher ON THE PA'S WEBSITE, AFTER THE TRUCE NO LESS.

according to the site you linked above (Visit IMRA's site for recent stories about...) the IMRA is "Awarded credentials by the Government of Israel as a news organization..." (taken from their own "about us" page)

hmmm ... as a news organization i bet they're at least trying to make a pass at being unbiased??? hmmm ... then why are they using bylines like "Classic One-sided American Jewish Left Statement on Cease Fire Agreement"???

(the next to last "news source" actually does things like put "peace partners" in quotes ... hmmm)

Are you now going to claim that every Israeli newspaper is biased and can't be trusted to report a simple news story?

anyway i bothered to read the story with the byline i quoted. also orgs like that can easily "collect" whichever stories they choose to present whatever side of the argument they want, it's what spin groups on every side of every political divide do.

most ilxors are pretty good about discussing this stuff in a reasoned manner - and it's not all dogpile-on-the-israelis sort of shit, whatever you might think.

but speaking as someone with plenty of family and friends in israel (haifa, mostly, they ride buses and eat in restaurants, too) i think your attitude on these threads is pretty offensive. this isn't a hockey match.

(and for all i know with that name it's my dad trolling after a hard day at work...)

I'm not the one starting shouting matches around here. I was done with this thread until I got called out for being a bullshitter.

I like how the pro-Palestinian view (factual or not) is rarely questioned around here, but as soon as I present a pro-Israel view, it's "spinning". That's a ridiculous double-standard that I don't need to defend myself against. [seriously, I'm not trying to start a fight with you, but you can't dismiss everything I write on the basis that it disagrees with your viewpoint and therefore must be unfairly biased]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/538438.html

i think it's a shame, though, when what DV referred to as "oblique rhetoric and sarcasm" sort of overshadows the content of that post ...

maybe daziz has a similar opinions to other people on ILX but i don't think anybody else is nearly as prone to name-calling, swearing, etc.

xpost: and as far as i know, that's the ONLY thing i've ever said about israel on ILX. i've said all sorts of stuff about iran, some stuff about the unfairness of war in iraq (speaking purely as a self-interested american who doesn't want to see his tax money wasted on getting american soldiers killed), and probably quite a bit about the futility of the war on terror.

i know i've bitched a lot about your attitude on these threads, i hope you don't take it personally. i mean, you don't act all aggro on ILM threads about techno!!

maybe daziz has a similar opinions to other people on ILX but i don't think anybody else is nearly as prone to name-calling, swearing, etc.

True. However, on other threads I have seen people make a post such as Darren's and get attacked for it. IMO, this happens because the viewpoint is new to those people and they aren't aware of significant parts of the history in the region. (I'm not saying I agree with Darren's post, I'm just using it as an example)

I think your posts about Iran are extremely insighful and informative. Truly a unique ILX viewpoint on that matter.