Are the recent Israeli assassinations of Hamas leaders

[bacchant]

designed to stir the hornets nest when Bush needs it most?

With all the eyes and ears trained on the intelligence community now, the opportunity to create another 911, internally, is nil. The next unifying tragedy will have to come from genuine terrorists.

Ok, it's a bit out there, but you never know...

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Not 'out there' at all

I can easily imagine Bush saying "so what if they retaliate? That'll just prove how evil they are". It's just an extension of the 'terrorist magnet' theory.

[IrateCitizen]

2. No, they're meant to stir the hornet's nest when Sharon needs it...

This has been the basis of Sharon's entire political career -- deliberately provoking unrest in order to justify violent repression and further his political career. Remember -- this is the same guy who went to visit the Temple Mount knowing full well it would spark serious unrest.

Sharon's a vile gangster -- anything he's doing is to promote his cause, not Bush's.

[Failure]

3. As long as shrub and sharon are in there

There will never, ever be peace. period.

[LeahMira]

7. Not exactly...

This has been the basis of Sharon's entire political career -- deliberately provoking unrest in order to justify violent repression and further his political career. Remember -- this is the same guy who went to visit the Temple Mount knowing full well it would spark serious unrest.

I think Sharon is more motivated by the belief that there is no place in Israel where a person who is Jewish should not go and no time when a person who is Jewish should be especially circumspect.

The Jewish people in the US have been amazingly successful... to the extent that Alan Dershowitz wrote of The Vanishing American Jew, which expresses a concern that the Jewish people in this country are assimilating and losing their unique identity as Jews. Nonetheless, it has not really been such a long time since, for instance, Jews were not hired to work for the DuPont company here in Delaware, and they were not hired to teach in the school districts. That has changed only in the past 25 or 30 years. The situation that the Jewish people faced in Europe and elsewhere was (and still is), of course, far more oppressive. That is the situation with which many of the Israelis are most familiar.

How inappropriate, then, is it when Jewish people are constrained from coming and going at certain times and to certain places in their own state?

I'm not a Sharon fan at all, but I do think that we in the US need to be fair in our assessments of the man. I'm sure he did know that his visit to the Temple Mount would not go unnoticed, but I also think that part of what he was doing was making a statement to the effect that in their own state the Jewish people will not be second class. I think that statement was as important, if not more important to Sharon than his career considerations.

[madrchsod]

4. sharon and his son are being

investigated for corruption...need i say anymore?

[forgethell]

5. Actually, I think that

Israel is neutralizing the terrorist leaders to protect their own country, not to help B*, or even Sharon. Hamas deals in murder, and is going to have to deal with the consequences.

[BillZBubb]

6. Bullshit!

Sharon DEALS IN MURDER and Israel is going to have to deal with the consequences.

People fighting to free their homeland are not terrorists. Occupiers who blow up apartment buildings killing dozens to get one combatant are. How many innocent Palestinians have Sharon and IDF killed? How many innocent Israeli's have the Palestinians killed? Labelling people "terrorists" because you are on the other side of the issue is intellectually weak.

Hamas is a merely a symptom caused by the Likud's land grab.

[forgethell]

8. People fighting to free their homeland ARE

terrorists if the way they fight is to target and murder innocent women and children. If such peoplechoose to hide their cowardly carcasses among their own women and children, then the blame is theirs if the Israelis decided that the protection of their own innocents comes first.

Look, although I am on the side of the Israelis, I really don't have a dog in this fight. If the Palestinains win, I'll feel a pang of regret, but get on with my life. The Israelis can't do that, they'll be dead. So if the Palestinians choose the tactics that they do, they have no real complaint about how the Israelis decide to stop them from their genocidal acts. And you know that they are working by the squeals that they emit about having the UN 'protect' them. What they want is for somebody, anybody to destroy Israel for them.

[LeahMira]

10. Excuse me, but...

... if Israel were to return to its pre-1967 borders and formally and officially recognize the Palestinian state, do you think that the terrorism against Israeli citizens would stop?

Do you think that if Israel offered reparations to individual Palestinians who were displaced from their homes and, insofar as possible, permitted those Palestinians whose homes are still intact to gradually return to their former land, that the terrorism against Israeli citizens would stop?

This, of course, is the problem. The terrorism will not stop simply because a Palestinian state is established, and it will not stop simply when the Palestinians are resettled in their former homes and represented politically in proportion to their numbers. The Palestinians as a group are not terrorists. Some of them are, but most are not.

When Arafat is asked to take some action to control terrorism, his response is something like "it's not me causing the problems, so I can't stop it." Fine, then if there is no one in charge among the Palestinians that can stop Hamas, Israel can stop them. If there is no one in charge among the Palestinians capable of bringing Hamas terrorists to justice, Israel can bring them to justice one way or the other.

Israel does understand that the Palestinian man in the street is generally not a terrorist. In fact, that Palestinian man in the street may be as afraid for his own life as the Israelis are, albeit for somewhat different reasons. I imagine I'd hide a terrorist and lie about his presence in my home if he held a knife to the throat of my child.

Israel has asked the Palestinian powers that be (Arafat) to take action. Arafat has refused. Other than going to the UN, which is rarely a friend to Israel, what are the Israelis to do?

If your answer is that they should turn over all the land that is now Israel to the Palestinians, then when is the US planning to turn over all its land to the American Indians? No, it does not matter how long ago the land was taken... be it fifty or a hundred years ago. If you are anxious to apply rules to the Israelis, you need to be as anxious to accept those rules for yourself. Otherwise, best accept a reasonable compromise of some sort.

[Malikshah]

11. Not doing sure as hell hasn't done anything

to stop the attacks.

Terrorism is a symptom--find the root cause and you can work on that.

To date there have been too many mis-diagnoses.

[Muddleoftheroad]

13. Terrorism is a symptom?

That's why the PLO formed in 1964, three years BEFORE the West Bank and Gaza fell into Israeli hands.

[Malikshah]

14. History Lesson?

Formation of PLO in 1964--check
Leader of PLO at time-- _______
Terrorist activities of PLO --- _______

Folks need to look at the history and come back with some answers.

[BillZBubb]

12. Thanks for the propaganda piece, it was VERY illuminating!

Israel didn't ASK Arafat to do something--they TOLD him to do something. If you cannot understand the simple point you are beyond hope. No real Palestinian leader is going to do Israel's bidding. What real patriot would work for the occupier?

The Israeli's should withdraw to the pre-1967 line. The US should then sign a mutual defense pact with Israel. Any state attack on Israel would require a US response, if asked. Israel should negotiate a FAIR water sharing agreement--not a Camp David type con job where they control the spigot. They should also negotiate some reasonable settlement with the Palestinians on the right of return. The right of return issue is a difficult one. I think the United States should bankroll that agreement--provide a decent home, land in the West Bank, and cash for those who lost property in the original war. And the settlement should be of much higher value than what was lost. Israel might agree to repatriate some of those insistent on returning to their original location. Given the generous settlement offer, though, that number ought to be minimal.

Of course, none of this will happen. The Israeli right has ALWAYS been determined to hold onto the land in the West Bank. It's the Israeli version of PNAC. Sharon keeps stirring the terrorism pot to keep short-sighted Israeli's (and their American fellow travelers) with the program.

[JohnyCanuck]

9. Designed to stir the hornet's nest is correct.

Israel is the elephant in the living room few want to acknowledge in the Iraq business.

Plan of Attack
Bob Woodward says the neocons set up a 'separate government' – but to what purpose?
by Justin Raimondo.

<snip>

Israeli policies are undeniably fueling the Iraqi insurgency, and swelling radical Islamist ranks. In a statement issued by a previously-unknown group claiming responsibility for the horrific death-by-mutilation of four American quasi-military contractors in Fallujah, the link was made explicitly:

"'This is a gift from the people of Fallujah to the people of Palestine and the family of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin who was assassinated by the criminal Zionists,' said in the statement from the 'Brigades of Martyr Ahmed Yassin.' 'We advise the U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq and we advise the families of the American soldiers and the contractors not to come to Iraq.'"

<snip>

On the other hand, the concept of the Iraq war as a successful Israeli covert operation is altogether plausible. It would hardly be the first time a foreign government made a concerted effort to drag us into war on their side. And just look at the pattern of recent events: Israel gains, America pays: Israel assassinates, Americans die: Israel conquers, and the American government concurs wholeheartedly: Israel says "Jump!" and the government of the United States only wants to know how high. Israel's partisans inside the U.S. government – who, according to top officials and other "defectors," set up their own "separate government" – seized the helm and steered the American ship of state into turbulent waters.

<snip>

This war, and the policy that gave birth to it, is criminal in so many different ways, but surely treason is not the least of the crimes that can be ascribed to the leaders of the War Party. The investigation into the machinations of this group – who acted, in effect if not consciously, as agents of a foreign power – is a ticking time-bomb for this administration – or, at least, for the "separate government" set up by the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Feith junta.
<snip>


http://www.antiwar.com/justin/