Reply #29: I agree with you, Passy! That was completely uncalled for (putting Norway [View All]

[Peace Patriot]

on that list). Applegrove apparently has an axe to grind here. It's amazing to me how anybody could dwell so much on the crimes of Palestinians, when our own country is committing such slaughter, and planning much more of it, and when the Palestinians have been so shoved around, disarmed, imprisoned, tortured and oppressed. Imagine if Mexico decided it was too overcrowded, and created a policy of a "right of return" to California, and carved out, say, southern California as the rightful homeland for Mexicans with indigenous blood, and didn't just permit immigration, but went further, and set up a California government and started pushing current residents into refugee camps, and carving up their neighborhoods and farms and businesses, and giving all the prime properties to Mexicans, and then took everybody's guns, and started imprisoning and torturing people who resisted. No one can say that Mexicans don't have a right to be in California, especially those with Indian blood. But many of US would be inclined to resist by any means possible, if Mexico tried to force such measures upon current residents. It might not be suicide bombings, but it might be something close to it. Palestinians are desperate, poor people, who don't have many means of defense, resistance or appeal. I agree that Israelis have a right to be in their homeland, as do Palestinians. But it's an extremely unbalanced situation--like the US government vs. the Indians, in the 1800s--always a temptation to powermongers and the greedy.

To overly stress the ways that Palestinians have resisted--and just to assume that they are crazy people--while you ignore everything that might have turned some of them into crazy people, and while you ignore the far, far bigger crimes, on a scale of genocide, that Israel's major ally has committed recently, at least in part to PROTECT Israel, and let her have her way with the Palestinians--is very wrong. I am very inclined to believe that Israel is simply making unilateral decisions about what it wants, and imposing those decisions. I think the facts support this. This is NOT a peace process. The Palestinians have almost no say, are given the worst lands, have had much of their land confiscated, and have been shoved around for so long, and are so poor, that it's difficult for them to govern themselves, in these desperate conditions.

Applegrove says Israel outlawed torture. Well, so did we. That doesn't mean there aren't secret decrees, permitting torture--or no paper work at all. Israel is a paranoid security state, which has relied on violence and threats of violence to deal with various problems. It would be no surprise at all to me to find that people in Israel's security apparatus were routinely violating the torture law, just as the Bushites are doing. I think they are closely allied in this and other regards, to the benefit of neither country. They seem to be trying to outdo each other in how horrible they can be.