Thu 11 Nov 2004
I couldn’t have said this better myself, and why the rest of the press isn’t saying this just stupefies me:
“Arafat the Monster” (Boston Globe)
Some choice quotes:
“In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, ‘God bless his soul.’”
“Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil — as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize — but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.”
November 12th, 2004 at 1:54 am
The Boston Globe got it wrong. Arafat was a great man, not a monster. Arafat alerts the world to the ethnic cleansing committed by the Israeli government and inspired by Hitler and Ezra. Twenty five years of yelling and the Palestinian had not been heard. So Arafat punched the West in the nose and we stood up and noticed. Without the destruction of three airlines, the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972 and the Arab oil embargo of 1974, the West could not care about the slow holocaust committed in the name of Zionism against Palestine.
Arafat had one fault. Arafat accepted peace too soon. He accepted peace before the Israelis has accepted the Palestinian right of return or adequate compensation for land lost. They are still waiting the return of East Jerusalem. That is why Arafat cannot be buried there.
The other great terrorist of the twentieth century did not make the same mistake. Nelson Mandela speech after his unconditional release from jail told the world he would continue the struggle rather than accept an unjust peace.
That is Arafat’s greatest mistake: foolishly, he believed in peace before justice.
November 12th, 2004 at 1:00 pm
Omissions in Arafatís Obituary
The death of Yasser Arafat has spurred the United Nations to fly its flag at half-staff, noting his supposed contribution to peace in the Middle East. Glowing tributes were paid to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at a memorial meeting held…
November 13th, 2004 at 12:36 pm
I wonder, Michael, if you would feel the same if it had been your children who were murdered as part of this “bloody nose” Arafat gave the west.
And by what moral logic do you justify Arafat’s murders but not the alleged murders commited by the Jews? If it’s not inherently wrong to commit murder, then by what authority do you condemn this alleged ethnic cleansing that Israel was committing? If murder isn’t evil, then it can’t justify Arafat’s response. And if it is evil, then Arafat was doing evil regardless of what Israel was doing.
Your position is not only morally repugnant, it is logically inconsistent.
November 13th, 2004 at 5:52 pm
If, when I get out of college, the man would be still alive, I would have killed him myself. I’ve got an m1903 Sprinfield, so it would have been easy.
November 13th, 2004 at 6:57 pm
I have an Israeli contractor who is doing work on my house, and he used to be in IDF Special Forces (about 15 years ago), and when he heard Arafat had died, he called me to tell me “The dog is dead!”. We were talking about it, and he told me “You have no idea how many times I heard over the radio from another SF sniper “Arafat is in my sights, can I take the shot?” and the Israeli government wouldn’t allow it.
What the world would have been like had he taken the shot.
November 15th, 2004 at 6:00 am
Doc Rampage,
I cannot understand the local inconsistency of my argument.
I can understand the immorality. The killing of innocents is always horrible. But you seem to forgotten about two simple facts.
Prior to the advent of Palestinian terrorism, you cannot find a prominent mention in the western media, or in the left or right political presses (one or two exceptions there) of the political repression of the Arabs in Israel. The Palestine camps had existed for 25 years and no-one cared.
If the double effect applies to war, it must apply to terrorism too. If you are unfamiliar with the double effect, let me give you a brief explanation. The US, UK and Australian Governments argue that getting rid of whatever in Iraq was the object. Unfortunately, there would be the unfortunate deaths of Iraqi nationals in achieving that objective.
The other you mention Jewish deaths. More Palestinians have died at the hands of the Israeli Army since the Oslo Agreements than Israelis at the hands of Suicided bombers. Are Palestinian lives worth less than Israeli lives? How would you make such judgements?
The creation of Israel in 1947 was wrong. It was created by a guilty West who refused refuge to those who died in the holocaust.
Correcting the mistake will not be easy. Nor can it involve deporting Israel’s current population. That is impossible! However, it must involve the Palestinian right of return - that is justice.
That is the justice and humility that Micah said God required of us. Arafat’s death will bring more radical Palestinian leaders. A sure fire way to be killed in the Middle East is to be a Palestinian who trades the right of return.
November 16th, 2004 at 10:28 pm
First of all, Michael, killing children to get attention is evil. I don’t care what your reasons for wanting to get attention are. Arafat was an evil man just from that. No more discussion required.
As to the rest, your view of the history is hopelessly one-sided. It was the Arabs who attacked Israel. It was the Arabs who refused to let the Palestinians resettle in other lands. It was the Arabs and Europeans and Arafat who have kept the disputed territories such poor and violent areas.
You think the Israelis wanted that cesspool nextdoor? Of course not. Peaceful Palestinians living in Israel are better of than most Arabs in the middle east. And if it hadn’t been for Arafat stealing all that international aid and killing anyone who wanted to make the disputed territories a better place for peace, those territories would be far better off.
If the Palestinians hadn’t insisted on wiping out israel and had been willing to make a real peace, israel probably would have let them return. It is their own violence and hatred that has kept them out.
And the west did not refuse refuge to Jews after the holocaust. They chose to go to Israel even though they had plenty of options. They peacefully bought land and set about making lives for themselves and the Arabs tried to kill them.
And since, then if at any time the Arabs had been willing to live in peace, so would the Israelis. The Arabs want to kill Israelis. The Israelis just want to live in peace. There is no question who is the good guy and who is the bad guy here.
The fact that you cannot see a difference between agressor and victim shows a distinct lack of moral character. I hope you never have a position where you sit in judgement on others, because it will make the world a more evil place.
November 17th, 2004 at 7:14 am
Doc,
I am sorry that all this offended you, Your feel my view of history is a bit myopic, I have the same feeling about yours.
I did not justify the killings of anyone. I simply stated that it was the only way the Palestinians gained world attention. They justified that by the double effect, the same way the United States is justifying the killing of Iraqi children currently occuring. Besides, Israel has been killing palestinian babies for a long time. Who stated it could be debated but that Isreal has the greater capicity is, in my opinion, beyond debate.
Nor did I say that the Jew had been refused refuge after te holocaust. I said that the jews had been refused refuge during the holocaust - from the election of Hilter, to Christel Naught, to World War II. The West simply decided to turn the head of other people.
Without justice there can be no peace. Palestinians want justice. The return of there land or just compensation for its loss. Arafat started to compromise but that lead to the rise of “more” radical groups like Hamas. Without Isreal acknowledging the injustice committed against the Arab residents of the then Palestine or Trans Jordon, there would been no refugees. The trigger event was the declaration of the State of Israel and the force explusion of the Palestinians from that original boundary of Israel. The so called cess pool was created by those trigger events.
If Israel wants peace then it must accept the justice of the Palestinian right of return. That is the last thing Israeli jews want to acknowledge.
In that context Arafat deserved his Noble Pease Prize. He was prepared to attempt peace. Peace weaken Arafat because he compromised on Justice. Isreal would prefer the cess pool to giving Justice to Palestinian families.
May I suggest you try to understand the issue from a Palestinian perspective first, Ask yoursellf what were there option at the end of the 1960s and how you would address the issues.
But do not come back with ” the ends do not justify the means!”. For God’s sake, what then does justify the meand!
November 17th, 2004 at 2:43 pm
Michael: Yes, you did justify the killing of children. You said “Arafat was a great man, not a monster. Arafat alerts the world to the ethnic cleansing committed by the Israeli government and inspired by Hitler and Ezra…”
In this quote you are calling Arafat a great man for “alterting the world”. How did he alert the world? By killing children. I’m sorry, as long as you think a mass murderer is a “great man”, I don’t have enough respect for your moral sensibilities to even want to be polite. I am outraged. And you should be ashamed of yourself.
There is no equivalence between people getting killed as a result of military action and terrorism. People die all the time as a result of actions we take. Building bridges and skyscrapers kills people. Driving kills people. Heck, taking a shower kills people.
And yes, war kills innocent people. But those deaths are accidents. There was no intent to kill innocent people, just as when I get in my car in the morning, I do not intend to kill anyone, but I know that as a result of this lifestyle choice, thousands are going to die this year. It’s a trade-off. Risks for benefits.
There is no comparison between this and deliberately going out to kill innocent people in order to achieve political goals. No comparison. And anyone who cannot see the stark difference here is just morally blind.
And your moral blindness is why you can’t see the difference between Hitler’s Holocaust: murdering millions of harmless people because he wanted to rid the world of their type, and Israels actions against the Palestinians who were far from harmless. Israel’s actions were far less cruel and far better motivated. They drove out rather than killed (and their mercy has come back to haunt them) and they did it in self defense.
Comparing this to Hitler is just beyond the pale. And I don’t see how you can condemn Hitler anyway. Your own amoral stand is too similar to his. You both think mass murder is just dandy as long as you have a good reason for it.
November 18th, 2004 at 10:33 am
Doc,
You like slang matches - I refuse to particpate.
You question my moral basis, but you are willing to accept murder in the name of Isreal. Interesting!.
So why did the Palestinians leave - by what means did the Isrealis drive them out of their homes. Maybe a polite, excuse me whould you please leave? No, it was bloody, violent, and involved murder! It was organised and it including little innocent children.
But you think Israeli babies are more important than palestinian ones! Interesting!
You then state my opinions are illogical. So how are yours logical? At least I not so quick to moral judgements. Any condemation of Israel I express has to do with the difference in power between strong Israeli government and military compared with the Palestinian Authorities police and Hamas’s suicide bommers.
I must reject the moral difference you set up. What is the difference between a nation raging war and a terrorist organization persuing a caus. I can only see it is the land they control! Both are committing acts of agression, seeking some goal, either just or unjust! Israel’s current goal in distrupting the Palestinian government is to force the PLO to give up the right of return! Isreal’s goal is simply unjust!
You are defending butchery by the powerful (Isreal) against the weak (the Palestinians).
Why? I do not know. May be it is a misguided loyality to your religion, the same misguded loyality that German Christians had to their Hitler. Maybe you think the bloodshed of Deuteronomy is really devine, maybe you think that the ethinic purity of Ezra and Nehemiah is God appointed, forgetting that according to Ruth, David and Ruth would have been expelled from Ezra’s Jerusalem.
May I should be so bold to surgest you bother reading Ethics by Bonhoeffer - A Christian in Nazi Germany. The book was started in 1942, when Bonhoeffer was involved in a murder plot! He finished it before he was hung for the involvement in the attempted murder of one Mr A. Hilter.
He died a traitor and a failed murder. Pray to God, that is not my fate!
November 18th, 2004 at 11:30 pm
OK guys, place nice. It’s starting to get more than a little testy.
Michael,
Reading what you wrote, it seems to me that you misunderstand one very basic fact about the Arab-Israel conflict. The Arabs don’t care about the land which is Israel. They want to kill all the Jews, plain and simple. This mantra has been repeated by nearly every imam and sheik since the early 1920s, and it is their entire motivation for the conflict. It isn’t because of poverty, it isn’t because of oppression, it isn’t because of inequity. It’s because they hate Jews, above and beyond all other considerations.
Have you ever wondered why Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and all the other Arab countries haven’t taken in one single arab refugee from Palestine? It’s because they don’t want them. They are a bunch of illiterate agitators who do nothing but cause trouble, just like they did when they had Palestine all to themselves. Instead, they want to use the Palestinians against the Jews, so their own populations will focus their anger on hatred for the Jews, rather than on the fact that they are living under totalitarian governments.
Even if you were to read the most revisionist of Israeli historians (e.g., Benny Morris’ book) on the Arab-Israel conflict, the overwhelming evidence is against the Palestinians for justifying their insane behavior. The Jews have offered so many olive branches to the “Palestinians”, and all of them have been rejected for no other reason than that they don’t want peace! They want the Jews dead! Why? Because they are Jews!
Also, just FYI, the “Palestinians” are not a “people”, as they are portrayed in the media. That was a designation that Arab leaders made up in the 1960s for propaganda purposes. They wanted to give them a name so they could be easily identified. The reality is that the “Palestinians” are just a jumbled bunch of Arabs from different tribes who lived in Palestine as itinerant or indentured workers to rich, absentee Arab families who used to own much of that land before they SOLD IT to the Jews from the late 1800s through the 1930s. That’s it.
My point is that the so-called Palestinians don’t have a “right of return” because most of their families never owned the land in the first place. They just worked those lands. They weren’t “driven” out of their homes by the Jews, because the land was sold to the Jews legitimately. Secondly, their interest HAS NEVER BEEN in the land, it’s in the death of all Jews.
Lastly, there is a very large moral difference between those who attack and enemy government, and those who attack innocent civilians. Why do you think everyone inherently associates 9-11 with the WTC and not the Pentagon? Because the Pentagon was a legitimate military target. The WTC was not. It may be a symbol, but the only people who died were innocents. If the suicide bombers blew up checkpoints with IDF soldiers, they’d have a lot more sympathy from me because they would be attacking legitimate military targets. But when you blow up an Israeli wedding or a supermarket, or a random bus stop, because of the what you feel is an injustice IDF is doing to you, well, it’s hard to morally equivocate those two things and still be intellectually honest, in my opinion. But, ironically, this exactly proves my point. The reason the IDF attacks terrorists, and sometimes kills innocents (which has never been it’s intent), is because it is the goal of Israel to secure peace for themselves by killing the people who a causing problems. There are almost 1.5 million non-Jewish Arabs in Israel and the IDF doesn’t tear down their homes or kill their children, even though they certain could do so if they wanted to. No, the goal of the suicide bombers is to kill Jews, wherever they might be found, and THAT is the moral difference, and I think its a rather clear one.
November 22nd, 2004 at 6:44 am
Neil,
If this got heated by how I said things, my apologies.
However, I do not go back on what I have said. Arafat was a great man. As a worrior, he unified a people. When the time came for a chance for a peaceful just settlement, Arafat gambled that it would happen. If he had one failure, it was that, unlike the other great terrorist of the twentieth century, Nelson Mandela; Arafat took the path of moderation without a just peace.
I am too a Christian. I have been heavy influence by the Christian Socialists. I am considered by many of my friends to be a liberal evangelical Christian. I just prefer to call it sane Christianity. One soul described the difference as a fundamentalist believes that everything God says it true. People like me believe that everything that proves to be true is what God is saying.
I have not read a history of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. All histories are “revisionist”. They assemble ‘facts’, make judgements about each fact value and then draw conclusions from those judgements. If you can only find histories that are pro-Israeli, may I suggest your reading is a little too narrow.
My opinions come for observation since my pre-teens in the late 60s, listening to people like Robert Fisk of the British Independent and original accounts from people like the 2003 winner of the Sydney Peace Prize, Hanan Ashrawi. I also search the internet for original documents.
My problem is that I dispute most of the fact you put forward. I could assemble my facts and call you unimformed. but you could justly say the same about me. No, let us limit our agruement to checkable facts or what we assume to be common knowledge. I beleive I could research every one a refute them but I have limited time.
So I will limit my hortizons. As what constitutes a relevant fact, let us proceed from common agreements between both sides. Let us limit our references to agreements between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. In October 2003, both sides signed the Geneva Accords.
You claim that the Palestinians want to kill all Jews and destroy the state of Israel. Yet in the Geneva Accords Article 2 begins with the right of both Israel and Palestine to exist. I am assuming that by accepting the Isreal’s existence the PLO accepts the right to life of every Jew in Israel/Palestine. Further the Accords site the Arab Leagues acceptance of Israel‚Äôs right to exist at it Beirut Conference on the 28 March 2002 shows wider Arab acceptance of Israel’s right of existence. Unless the Israeli government are fools, they would not have signed such an Accord if they did not accept the legitimacy of these affirmations.
An underlining assumption of the Geneva Accords is the prior acceptance of Palestinian owership and control of Israel. The claim that the Palestinians sold the land to Jews in whatever form is not accept as by either the Palestinian Liberation Authority or the State of Israel. Article 7 deals with the Right of Return and the compensation to be paid by the State of Israel to the future state of Palestine for land lost during the take over of 1947. Section 3 of Article 7 states that “Refugees shall be entitled to compensation for their refugeehood and for loss of property. By implication, the state of Israel recognises the Palestinian prior ownership and occupation of the land that now constitutes the State of Israel.
You then proceed to defend the idea of that there is a moral difference between suicide bomber and Israeli Defence Force. I am lost here for three reasons.
First, the concept of a non-combatant today is a little fuzzy. Indeed, it has been so since World War II. The bombing of civilian targets as a means of carrying on a military action was established then. The British bombing of Dresden to a fire storm shows that the Allies approved of such tactics, regardless of their justification. The theory of “Total War” which, among other things, uses violence to increase an enemy’s anxiety by adding a fear the well being of their family. No, I do not like it. Both sides are doing it!
Secondly, what other choice the Palestinians have? They do not have an army and have no intention of rasing one. No one has given me any other means for them to be heard. The na√Øve approach of just speaking out does not work. As Arandahati Roy observed ‚ÄúWe know of course there’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard‚Äù. Prior to the advent of Palestinian terrorism, that describes the Palestinian plight.
Thirdly, the real terrorists are Israeli Defese Force! Israel is acting unjustly! Where does one begin? Amnesty International is only one international groupt that has assembled a lengthy history documenting Israeli agression and the violation of Palestinian human rights. If I let you examine the reports yourself, you can see why many have lost their patience with Israeli properganda.
I have not made broad assertions about one side against another. I have simply used the internet to provide evidence. This is the only way we can proceed. It is time consuming but it might allow us to proceed through our conflict. You and Doc might not like the implications of what I saying however I have assembled some facts. Now I ask, “where is your evidence?
I we proceed but this path of checkable facts or common knowledge, we might be able to distill the will of God in Isreal and Palestine, whether that God is YWYH, EGO AIMI or Allah.
NOTE - I have posted this on my blog of LeftXian.
November 23rd, 2004 at 6:02 am
Oh dear all the links are not shown… if you want them you must visit my blog - why did they not appear?