Peres: Arafat deserved Nobel

[bemildred]

Tel Aviv - Former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres said on
Monday that beleaguered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat fully
deserved to be awarded the Nobel peace prize.

The current Israeli government has deemed Arafat an absolute
obstacle to peace and agreed in principle to remove the 74-year-old
from his West Bank headquarters.

But Peres, speaking here at a special conference to mark his 80th
birthday, said that Arafat should be given credit for offering an
unprecedented hand of peace to Israel.

"I believe it was right to give (Arafat) the Nobel peace prize
because he did three things that no other Palestinian leader
did," Peres told a round-table discussion which featured three
other Nobel laureates here.

more

[foo_bar]

1. maybe an order of the Red Banner

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004075

[bemildred]

3. That's pretty funny.

I bookmarked it.
I can't wait for his book.

[Equinox]

5. Are we to trust this ex KGB agent?

the story was a good laugh indeed.

[MariMayans]

9. and he is wrong about everything

Arafat didn't invent the suicide bomb and he didn't even bring it to the region. That was Hizbollah. WSJ will print anything.

[Equinox]

11. After reading that, I wonder if the KGB guy had a score to settle maybe?

I'm not an Arafat biographer, but it did seem to me that most of the piece was just that. A piece for worthless shit.

Edit: piece

[bemildred]

12. I rather thought his interest might be pecuniary.

The bit about Ceausescu missing out on his Nobel was
indicative of this fellows creative imagination.

[MariMayans]

13. I've talked to Russian immigrants..

some of them have some uh...interesting conceptions about how things work over here especially relating to the publishing world.

[bemildred]

16. I rather like Russians.

I have experienced that little cognitive disjunction
you speak of in talking with them at times. The rules of
discourse are not the same and you don't know what the
differences are. It reminds me of a trip I made to Korea
once, and I was being carried about as a token American for
their business purposes, and we'd be caught in these huge traffic
jams - it was scary - and it impressed itself on me that there
were very rigid rules in effect, and they worked quite well,
but I had no clue as to what they were.

[Equinox]

14. For those of us who need dictionaries....

pe·cu·ni·ar·y ( P ) Pronunciation Key (p-kyn-r)
adj.
Of or relating to money: a pecuniary loss; pecuniary motives.
Requiring payment of money: a pecuniary offense.


LOL..I'm sure there were more people out there who didn't have the slightest idea what pecuniary meant. Thought I'd share.

So you think that he was bribed into writing this?

Edit: Please use small words when replying. I'm dense and not very literate today! LOL....:+

[bemildred]

15. Bribed is probably not the right word,

"paid" is more like it, as in "it's a job, I get paid for it".
Think Ann Coulter and you have the right idea, she gets paid
and paid well as long as she disgorges the right sort of drool.

[The Magistrate]

17. A Poor Example, Sir

That particular creature is in the enviable position of being paid to do what she would eagerly perform for the sheer love of it.

[Equinox]

18. LOL...either way, I get the point, thanks bmildred.

n/t

[bemildred]

21. A true "professional", I think we can agree.

[Aidoneus]

22. not Hizbollah

it was actually the Iraqi al-Dawwa party that first introduced the tactic..

but, um.. WSJ will print anything.

[MariMayans]

23. I thought it was the Tamil Tigers..

or perhaps you meant introducing the tactic to the middle east. If that's the case I've never heard this story and am eager to get the background on it.

[Aidoneus]

24. I don't know much about the Black Tigers.

but I think the war there began '83 or somesuch?.. :shrug:

al-Daawa's first suicide bomber was a short time after Sadr was executed in punishment for a series of Dawa-connected clashes with the Baathists after the revolution next door, he was executed most particularly after Dawa assassins were able to kill Ghazi al-Hariri and tried to kill Tariq Aziz. In the 60s/70s they tried the nonviolent resistance type methods and were met with pretty serious police repression, after the revolution in Iran and execution of Sadr some sections of the group took it to another level. The "Shahid al-Sadr" resistance militants went on even more of a bender attacking many Baathist government figures and buildings and any of their allies they could get their bombs near, the first "suicide bomb" operation was in Dec'81 against the Iraqi embassy in Beirut.

It was also an al-Dawa member that blew up the French embassy & one of the US embassies in the 80s in Lebanon also--the first time that happened that is, I think the other embassy bombing was planned by the Mughniyah/Badruddin pairing that also took out the MNF barracks (Badruddin's brother was al-Dawa himself), with probably a Lebanese Shia al-Dawa bomber to actually drive the truck. Hizbullah's Sheikh Tufeili once said something to the tune that they owed almost all of their early operations (when he was Secretary General and before he became an unperson to Hizbullah) to al-Daawa people--Fadlallah & Nasrallah and some of the others anyway where tied back to Sadr before then in his Najaf school, Khomeini & his circle as well before they hit the "big time". In mid-'82 the Iraqi Ministry of Planning was hit, late'83 the Mukhabarat HQ & Ministry of Defense were attacked by human-bombers. May of '85, a Daawa suicide bomber tried to kill the Kuwaiti emir for their backing of Hussein, Badruddin's brother was arrested tied to this and a couple other things, Mughniyah is said to have then used his own extended family/clan ties to organize a couple "terrorist" events & kidnappings to try and force the freedom of the people held in Kuwait, but in the mother of ironies it took Hussein invading Kuwait to (accidently) set the Daawa people free that were jailed by the emir.

Much of al-Daawa's cadres joined up with Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim when he started the SAIRI organization.

[bemildred]

25. Appears Hizbollah gets the palm:

This dates from 2000, but I believe the basic points still hold:

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=112

Looking at history of terrorism, it can be seen that suicide attacks are in actuality a very old modus operandi . In ancient times two notorious sects, the Jewish
Sicairis and the Islamic Hashishiyun became infamous for such attacks. In the 18th century, suicide tactics were used on the Malabar coast of Southwestern
India, in Atjeh in Northern Sumatra and in Mindanao and Sulu in the Southern Philippines. In all of these places Muslims carried out suicide attacks in their fight
against Western hegemony and colonial rule. <1>

---

Hizballah suicide terrorism

Suicide terror attacks started in Lebanon in April 1983. A small-and until then unknown-group by the name of Hizballah directed a number of suicide attacks
against Western targets. The first attack was directed at the American embassy in Beirut (April 1983), followed by attacks on the U.S. Marines headquarters and
the French Multinational Force (October 1983). The last two were executed simultaneously and resulted in 300 casualties and dozens of wounded. The later
attack made an indelible impression on world public opinion and terror organizations alike.

---

The LTTE

One of the groups that followed Hizballah-even exceeding it in both execution and number of incidents-was the LTTE, the Tamil separatist group in Sri-Lanka.

The LTTE is unequivocally the most effective and brutal terrorist organization ever to utilize suicide terrorism. Between July 1987 and February 2000 it has
carried out 168 suicide terror attacks in Sri-Lanka and India leaving thousands of innocent bystanders dead or wounded.<2> Its suicide unit, ?The Black
Panthers? is comprised of both men and women. One characteristic unique to the LTTE is the fact that every member of the group carries a cyanide capsule
around his/her neck, which he or she may consume upon capture in order not to disclose the group?s secrets. The members of the ?Black Panthers? unit have
demonstrated their continuous readiness to die when they were surrounded by security forces. In many instances they blew themup or bit cyanide capsules
rather than risk captivity and subsequent interrogation which could force them to betray their comrades.

-------

Some other links:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_SeptOct_2001/sprinzak.html
http://www.cdiss.org/terror.htm
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=887

[Aidoneus]

26. such are the claims..

it's not my fault they're wrong. :)
these "terrorism experts" that are trained to control the flow of the discussion have an agenda to push, not always on par with how things are.

[bemildred]

27. This one?

November 1982:

Israeli military headquarters in Tyre, Lebanon, destroyed by Islamic
suicide bomber leaving seventy five Israeli soldiers dead, along with fifteen
Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.

[bemildred]

30. Didn't you like his nice charts?

This particular one does seem fixated on Middle Eastern
activities, with the exception of LTTE.

Do you have a source for al Dawwa? I cannot find diddly on it.

[Aidoneus]

34. mmm..charts..

useful information tends to come in bits and pieces..

for what I mention, off hand I would refer to parts of Mahan Abedin's "Dealing with Al-Daawa and its controversial legacy" and a few comments that ex-Hizbullah Secretary General Subhi Tufeili (who now seems to be something of an unperson to the party, and the feeling is mutual as he thinks of them now as both Israel's new guardian and defender on the border and defenders of Lebanon's corrupt elite-class criminal state..he's something of an "outlaw" figure for mildly inciting class tensions among the extremely poor radicals in Bekaa) gave to Reuters/Associated Press journalist Hala Jaber. I have it in a book and not online that I know of (haven't looked and probably won't try), in his words as quoted by her "...Hezbollah was in essense the Dawa party from which we removed the title of Dawa and entered it into military rounds in order to start the resistance...". Little bits and pieces like that come in handy when similar claims are made by completely different sources.
(Jaber's book about Hizbullah is a fair bit sensationalist at times--something it claimed to have avoided..--, but has some interesting bits as she was practically the first journalist they opened up their inner history to.)

This next part goes directly unstated, but it seems to have been around the time that al-Daawa's 'activist wing' influence was dying off (mostly due to Mukhabarat's expertise in torture and making just being a member of the Dawa organization in Iraq a death sentence or a prison term) that Hizbullah mostly moved away from the humanbomb assaults and preferred more to develop a more conventional program, saving them for psychological effect (for example, hitting a military occupation convoy right on the Israeli border, well within the "security zone" of Israeli/SLA-occupied Lebanon--drove the IDF nuts, Israeli politicians panicked and naturally went on a bender and blew up anything and anyone in Lebanon they could hit).

LTTE/Black Tigers definitely have the dubious honor of carrying out the most and refined the practice. The study of their history is not without black humour. That Rohan somethingorother, Sinhala-chauvanist and "terrorim expert" on al-Qai'dah/etc, once dropped the bombshell that the Black Tigers had made this special suit that would--magickally, I would assume--make the humanbombers' head into a deadly projectile weapon up to a certain range. Evidence of this was never found and he has since never referred to this claim since then.. this is what passes for "terror experts". :)

from Abedin's piece,
...The first attack targeted Iraq’s Beirut embassy in December 1981, killing 27 people, and has been described as the first major suicide bombing. Most controversially, the party also bombed the US and French Embassies in Kuwait in December 1983. Two years later, an Al-Daawa suicide bomber attacked the emir of Kuwait’s motorcade, failing to kill him...

[bemildred]

41. Aha! So they are Hezbollah:

Hezbollah was in essense the
Dawa party from which we removed the title of Dawa and
entered it into military rounds in order to start the
resistance..
:-)

1981 IS earlier than anything I have presently.

But seriously, it is noticeable that the "history of terrorism"
links I dig up from time to time vary widely in the selection they
choose to highlight. But this simply indicates, among other things,
the long and varied history of the tactic, which is an obvious tactic
once one has high-explosives. Take the idea of dying for one's cause,
an idea as old as man, and combine it with some HE and you have the
first low-tech "smart-weapon", and this explains the apparently
unintuitive popularity of it among those without better means.

Thanks for the information.

[Terwilliger]

2. Holy cow!

:wow:

That ought to throw a stick in the Arafat hatred. Didn't someone recommend that this person, who did win the Nobel peace prize, should be assassinated?

OnEdit: did win

[sushi]

4. It would be good

for Israel to have the moderate Shimon Peres as leader. It's nice for Arafat that he said that.

[MariMayans]

6. Peres is a snake

I don't know what he's up to jumping off the "lynch Arafat" bandwagon but he's not to be trusted.

[bemildred]

7. I thought it was an interesting story after the

happy talk birthday party with Sharon. The story was
hard to dig up in a non-arab source. I predict the "doddering
old man" defense any time now. You don't suppose they dislike
each other?

[MariMayans]

8. Arafat and Peres?

or Arafat and Sharon dislike other? The probable answer in either case is that Peres doesn't have friends and like or dislike doesn't have much to do with his decisions.

[bemildred]

10. Sharon and Peres.

I expect you are right to some degree, but politicians
attitudes towards one another certainly do have consequences,
as do their unexamined biases and ill-considered ideas.

[LastDemInIdaho]

19. Arafat and Nobel

The only thing Arafat and Nobel have in common is that arafat and his terror cronies use the Nobel invention of dynamite or its nitrated cousins semtex, rdx, petn etc to blow the living daylights out of innocent Israelis.

If arafat tried he could put a stop to the bombs of hate from his cadre or terror suicidal bombers.

[bemildred]

20. You seem quite fixated on that subject Sir.

Actually I believe they (the Palestinians who blow things up)
use homemade explosives for the most part, not being able to
obtain military grade stuff, and a good thing it is too.

So you disagree with Mr. Peres?

[Darranar]

28. Well, I do somewhat...

disagree with Mr Peres, that is. The whole "peace" affair seemed to be actions by the respective governments to make themselves look like they were accomplishing something. Sincerity is a rarity in politics after all, and in this case it is even more sparce.

Of course, by that logic Mr. Peres doesn't deserve it either, so there's good reason to believe that he's doing this to cover up his own behind...

[bemildred]

29. To quote Mr. Eastwood in the film "Unforgiven"

before he plugs the sheriff:

"Deserve's got nuthin to do with it"

I was trying to distract Mr. Idaho from his fixation on
explosives and such to address something nearer the post
that started the thread.

[The Magistrate]

31. An Excellent And Instructive Film, Sir

[bemildred]

32. Easily Mr. Eastwood's finest work, IMHO.

Our old friend Absynthe was fond of the never to be forgotten:

"We've all got it coming kid"

[LastDemInIdaho]

33. I disagree with arafat getting a peace prize.

Someone that allows his people to murder innocents does not deserve nor should accept a peace prize.

[Aidoneus]

35. would you accept the opposite as well if applicable?

or does the particular flag of the person(s) being referenced outweigh the actual historical record?--it's my experience that this comes up a lot, just curious if it applies here. Never got the chance to finish our silly fight in the deleted thread, I might as well provoke a new one with my new favourite I/P madman.

[LastDemInIdaho]

36. I'm a lover not a fighter

And arafat is providing the means for his homemade terrorists to function without fear of arrest.

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Aidoneus]

38. my kingdom for a straight answer...

:argh:

Perhaps my subtlety was the problem, as it sometimes is.. forgetting generality, let me try a specific instance.

Lets say that--and this is not a hypothetical--Israeli Prime Minister Rabin (the other Nobel Prize winner alongside your favourite Source of All Evil) was responsible for the bombing of 50 villages, 130 innocent civilian deaths, created 200,000 internally displaced persons (deliberately targetted with the intent of pressuring others for the political benefit of the aggressor), all within the time frame of about a week... would you denounce this as a terrible thing with the same zeal which you rave aimlessly with about "arafat and his hamas soldiers"...
...Or, is that totally different, just peachy/ok/doubleplusgood, "legitimate defense against terrorism", and something to be justified by the most obsessive and tediously hypocritical set of (often random) slogans because it's Israel doing it and not your meticulously demonized scapegoat?

[Darranar]

39. When was this?

In which war did Yitzhak Rabin do this?

[Equinox]

40. Rabin wasn't an angel....

that said, Arafat and Rabin have done some horrible things. Yet they both deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for attempting find a long term peace between their people.

[Aidoneus]

42. July 1993

"Operation Accountability", led militarily by that great Labour "dove" General Barak; to be more or less repeated 3yrs later (adding his own spin with a hit on unarmed refugees at Qana and an ambulance near Tyre) by that other great Labour "dove" PM Peres with "Operation Grapes Of Wrath".

[Darranar]

43. OK...

This was in response to the first intefatah?

[MariMayans]

44. creating terror was the stated goal

The purpose was to create a refugee problem that would head north and make life miserable for the leaders in Beirut so that they would crack down on Hezbollah.

[Darranar]

45. I want to know...

what the politicized goal of the operation was.

[MariMayans]

46. They were fighting "hezbollah"

by mass bombing Lebanon.

[Darranar]

47. Got it...

so this operation was in Lebanon.