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Topic: BLOOD TALKS!

topic by barb 3/20/2002 (3:03)

reply top Unfortunately, blood is the only way they 'talk' in this struggle. How shameful and immoral. Mideast: Cease-Fire May be the Easy Part A truce is simply a means to a resumption of political talks. And an Arafat-Sharon deal seems unlikely BY TONY KARON Tuesday, Mar. 19, 2002 Violence and diplomacy often go together in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. But the problem facing U.S. General Anthony Zinni's Middle East mediation efforts is the extent to which violence has become a brutal form of negotiation. Vice President Dick Cheney joined Zinni in Israel Monday in an urgent effort to arrange a cease-fire, and Israel's military withdrawal overnight from recently reoccupied Palestinian areas suggested the mission was making progress. But while the U.S. and Israel might be content with simply avoiding a repeat of the bloodbath of the past two weeks, Yasser Arafat needs more — a resumption of fast-track negotiations for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. And unlikely as it may have seemed a month ago, Arafat now holds the strategic cards. Two weeks Ariel Sharon launched a massive military offensive he hoped would pummel the Palestinians into submission. The tactic backfired: Not only did the assault fail to stop Palestinian attacks deep inside Israel, but the heavy Palestinian death toll also finally forced the U.S. to resume its stalled mediation efforts. That mediation prompted Israel's Monday retreat — Palestinians had insisted there was nothing to discuss while Israeli troops remained in Palestinian Authority territory. Although Cheney appears set to maintain the Bush administration's distance from Arafat, the very fact that the Palestinian leader was able to set terms for joining an American cease-fire initiative is an indication of how quickly the political balance in the region has shifted. Arafat has not only survived Sharon's siege, he has begun to prosper politically as the U.S. effort to rally Arab support against Saddam Hussein has forced the Bush administration to restrain Israel. Such external pressure may even help the beleaguered Sharon by giving him the political cover to retreat from a military escalation whose failure to alter the situation has only fueled challenges from both his left and right flanks. Still, the restoration of calm for its own sake may not be sufficient incentive for Arafat — or the tens of thousands of Palestinian militants on the ground who have waged the intifada — to enforce a cease-fire. Such incentive would only come, say Palestinian officials (and European mediators and Israeli peacemakers such as foreign minister Shimon Peres) with the restoration of negotiations over Palestinian statehood. While Sharon and his supporters balk at resuming such talks, arguing that this would simply reward violence, Peres and others say that it would create a necessary incentive for Arafat to keep the peace. The U.S. has nodded in that direction by sponsoring a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a Palestinian state. The White House is also backing Saudi efforts to get the Arab League to agree to normalize relations in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal to its 1967 borders. While Arafat has rushed to calibrate his own positions with the Saudi plan, Sharon has publicly rejected it. Having opposed the Oslo accords from the get-go, the prospect of giving up all or most of the West Bank and Gaza is anathema to the prime minister. The logic of the current cease-fire effort, prescribed by the Tenet and Mitchell reports, is to bring the parties quickly back to the negotiating table they abandoned last January. But if Arafat and Ehud Barak couldn't reach a final Israeli-Palestinian agreement, it takes a leap of the imagination to visualize an Arafat-Sharon deal. And yet without one, there's little chance that any truce emerging in the coming days will amount to much more than a time out.

reply by TheAZCowboy 3/20/2002 (11:42)

reply top Re: US brokered cease fires and peace agreements and other US/Israeli government generated fantasies. Interesting how easy it is for us fat & sassy American's to define the Israeli/Palestinian problem, and possible solutions, of-course. Standing there in the comfort of our warm, undemolished (but highly mortgaged) homes that are safe from the IDF thug's and their US supplied Apache helicopter gunships, with an endless supply of hellfire/TOW antitank missiles, their shiny US supplied advanced F-16's and the Israeli ( US taxpayer developed ) Merkava tanks, and let's not forget the US supplied Caterpiller bull dozers used by Israel for demolishing Paly homes in minutes, huh? Yep, GOD BLESS AMERICA and the fact that we have a standing army to protect us all unlike the hapless Palestinians. Lemmie tell you how wrong you are barb. 1st, the US couldn't give a rats ass about the Palestinian's. We have seen this time and again as DIM BULB has given Sharon the green light to murder, massacre, maim, displace and terrorize Palestinian's on a whim and as the IDF killers in their Merkava tanks have made Arafat a virtual prisoner in Ramallah without a peep coming from the US president. (as for the brutal killing of Palestian's on their own turf over the past 18 months--haven't you heard the names, Ramallah, Jenin and Rafah in the news lately? How many 'protests' have come from the Whitehouse regarding the countless killings, maimings and Palestinian's left homeless and/or dying on the roads of their villages as the IDF thugs have continually fired at Red Crecent ambulances trying to pick up the IDF's bloodied victims to rush them to nearby clinic's and hospitals?) and don't forget Israel's endless demolishing of Paly homes has not bothered Se~nor Dubya much either, as evidenced by his eerie silence and obvious smirks. There are three basic reasons why Chaney, Zinni and spare parts for Israel's brutal F-16's and Apache Helicopter gunships and hellfire/TOW missiles continue to flow into Israel. a. The US won't attack Iraq without an Arab coalition and remain the 'holier than thou' nation it pretends to be, so calling the Zionist dogs off makes the US look a really involved peace negotiator. (US access to Arab bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar and Egypt are critical as we all know). b. Too many IDF/Settler thugs are getting knocked off while trespassing on Palestinian turf by the hapless Paly's at this time and Dubya wants to put a halt to this Palestinian 'terrorism' immediately! c. The Arab League nations are meeting at the end of March and the US wants to be seen by the Arab nations as that ah-so 'Even handed peace negotiator' in the Israeli/Palestinian morass, which BTW, it isn't. The Palestinian's learned long ago that the Zionist colonizers and trespassers, along with their US sponsors, 'only respect brute force' (Re: Mogadishu, USS Cole, both US Embassies in Africa, Saudi Arabia, WTC and soon Afghanistan) and their current solutions are solutions learned 1st hand from the US and Israel. TheAZCowBoy,

reply by barb 3/20/2002 (13:21)

reply top How 'wrong' I am about what?

reply by John Calvin 3/20/2002 (14:07)

reply top It is not out of the realm of possibility that the ONLY reason Israel pulled out of Bethlehem and Ramallah was because the Palestinians managed to blow up two of their 'invulnerable', multi-million dollar Merkeva tanks.. As for Zinni and his 'negotiations', the only thing he offers Arafat is CIA assistance in rounding up 'radicals'.The whole thing is a futile propaganda exercise for the dimmest of the dim back home because Arafat has made it perfectly clear there is absolutely no hope for any kind of a ceasefire until Israel withdraws its troops from the occuppied territories first. Not a single Arab or Islamic country in the world sees it any other way, including Turkey! This is what Cheney heard in every country he visited- stop the occupation and dismantled Israel's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, then we'll talk about Saddam Husein. The ONLY leader in the ENTIRE WORLD who supports Bush's position is TONY BLAIR, against the advice of nearly half the members of his own party, the Home Secretary as well as the head of the Army! China has made diplomatic representations only just short of ultimatuums and a declaration of war! Never-the-less, Bush is the President, 'How could he be wrong' ? Duh.