Bush's Policy Change Angers Palestinians

Oh boy...now you've painted yourself into a corner!
Let's see what the Ayn Rand Institute's position is on the Israel/Pal conflict, shall we?

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/moralright.shtml

Israel Has A Moral Right To Its Life
Why reason and justice are on Israel's side


As yet another appalling suicide bombing takes place in Israel, killing 19 people and wounding dozens more on a bus packed with schoolchildren in Jerusalem--as Hamas claims credit for the massacre--America's policymakers still insist on seeking an "even-handed," diplomatic solution.
In the past 18 months, Israel's six million citizens have suffered 12,480 terrorist attacks. They have buried more than 400 victims—a per-capita death toll six times that of America on September 11. Yet, in an abhorrent act of injustice, Israel continues to be pressured by the United States into making concessions to Yasser Arafat, the archpatron of those terror attacks. In the long run, this means that Israel is being pressured into sacrificing its basic right to exist.
We should be supporting Israel's right to take whatever military action is needed to defend itself against its nihilistic enemies. Morally and militarily, Israel is America's frontline in the war on terrorism. If America is swayed by Arafat's latest empty rhetoric, and allows him to continue threatening Israel, our own campaign against terrorism becomes sheer hypocrisy and will, ultimately, fail.

Consider the facts and judge for yourself:

The Israelis and the Palestinians are not morally equal
Israel is the only free country in a region dominated by Arab monarchies, theocracies and dictatorships. It is only the citizens of Israel—Arabs and Jews alike—who enjoy the right to express their views, to criticize their government, to form political parties, to publish private newspapers, to hold free elections. When Arab authorities deny the most basic freedoms to their own people, it is obscene for them to start claiming that Israel is violating the Palestinians' rights. All Arab citizens who are genuinely concerned with human rights should, as their very first action, seek to oust their own despotic rulers and adopt the type of free society that characterizes Israel.

Since its founding, Israel has been the victim
Since its founding in 1948, Israel has had to fight five wars—all in self-defense—against 22 hostile Arab dictatorships, and has been repeatedly attacked by Palestinian terrorists. Arafat is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Israeli schoolchildren, the hijacking of airliners and the car bombings and death-squad killings of thousands of Israeli, American, Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. Today he ardently sponsors such terror groups as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al Aksa Brigade.
The land Israel is "occupying" was captured in a war initiated by its Arab neighbors. Like any victim of aggression, Israel has a moral right to control as much land as is necessary to safeguard itself against attack. The Palestinians want to annihilate Israel, while Israel wants simply to be left alone. If there is a moral failing on Israel's part, it consists of its reluctance to take stronger military measures. If it is right for America to bomb al-Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan—and it is—then it is equally justifiable for Israel to bomb the terrorist strongholds in the occupied territories.

Hatred of Israel, and of the United States, is hatred for Western values
Like America's war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the Arab-Israeli dispute is a conflict between opposing philosophies. On the one side are the forces of mysticism, medieval tribalism, dictatorship—and terror; on the other side are the forces of reason, individualism, capitalism—and civilization. Arafat and his sympathizers hate Israel for the same reason that Osama bin Laden and his sympathizers hate America, i.e., for embracing secular, Western values. No "peace process" is possible with such enemies.
This is not an ethnic battle between Jews and Arabs, but a moral battle between those who value the individual's right to be free and those who don't. Those Arabs who value individual freedom are enemies of the Arafat regime and deserve to be embraced by Israel; those Jews who do not value individual freedom deserve to be condemned by Israel.

Israelis have a right to the land
Only Israel has a moral right to establish a government in that area—on the grounds, not of some ethnic or religious heritage, but of a secular, rational principle. Only a state based on political and economic freedom has moral legitimacy. Contrary to what the Palestinians are seeking, there can be no "right" to establish a dictatorship.
As to the rightful owners of particular pieces of property, Israel's founders—like the homesteaders in the American West—earned ownership to the land by developing it. They arrived in a desolate, sparsely populated region and drained the swamps, irrigated the desert, grew crops and built cities. They worked unclaimed land or purchased it from the owners. They introduced industry, libraries, hospitals, art galleries, universities-and the concept of individual rights. Those Arabs who abandoned their land in order to join the military crusade against Israel forfeited all right to their property. And if there are any peaceful Arabs who were forcibly evicted from their property, they may press their claims in the courts of Israel, which, unlike the Arab autocracies, has an independent, objective judiciary—a judiciary that recognizes the principle of property rights.

Palestinians are not "freedom fighters"
The Palestinians want a state, not to secure their freedom, but to perpetuate the dictatorial reign of Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Arafat's "police" brutally expropriate property and silence opposing viewpoints by shutting down radio and TV stations. They systematically arrest, torture and murder peaceful dissenters. To call the militant Palestinians "freedom fighters"—when they support the subjugation of their own people, when they deliberately murder children in the streets or gleefully praise such depravity—is a mind-numbing perversion.

Palestinians have consistently sought to destroy Israel
In 1947 the Palestinians rejected the U.N.'s offer of a state larger than the one they are demanding now. Instead, they joined in a war aimed at wiping Israel from the map. Today, that hostility has only hardened. For example, in a televised public sermon, a Palestinian Imam declared: "God willing, this unjust state [of] Israel, will be erased." Palestinian textbooks are filled with vile, anti-Jewish propaganda, such as this exhortation from a fifth-grade Arabic language text: "Remember: the final and inevitable result will be the victory of the Muslims over the Jews."

A Palestinian state under Arafat would become a base for terrorism
A Palestinian state headed by Arafat would be a launching pad and a training ground for terrorist organizations targeting, not only Israel, but the United States. Forcing Israelis to accept a Palestinian state under Arafat is like forcing Americans to accept a state the size of Mexico, 12 miles from New York City, ruled by Osama bin Laden. As long as the Palestinians sanction aggression, they should not be permitted their own state.

Arafat's meaningless words will not restore life to his terror-victims—past or future
No rhetoric by Arafat can change the fact that he is a hater of freedom and a destroyer of innocent human life. Imagine Osama bin Laden being enticed by American diplomats to announce: "We strongly condemn operations that target American civilians, especially the last one in New York. We equally condemn the massacres that have been, and are still being, committed by U.S. occupation troops against Taliban civilians in Kandahar, Shah-i-Kot and Tora Bora." Would any sane individual thereby endorse an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and the creation of a Taliban state, headed by bin Laden, alongside America? If not, why should Israel be expected to act so suicidally?

America, for its own benefit, must allow Israel to uphold the principle of self-defense
The growing demand for Israel to negotiate with Arafat comes from an unprincipled, range-of-the-moment mentality. Surrendering to extortion—which the "land-for-peace" catechism endorses—is profoundly immoral and impractical. In the 1938 version of "land for peace," Nazi Germany was appeased by being allowed to take over Czechoslovakia as part of the Aryan people's "homeland"; the result was to encourage Hitler to start a world war.
The Arab-Israeli conflict could become a dress rehearsal for a wider, global conflict. If America now stops Israel from retaliating against Arafat, the father of international terrorism, how can it ever justify retaliation against its own enemies? If we force Israel to appease Arafat, we will be broadcasting, loud and clear, that terrorism can bring America too to its knees.
We should urge our government to recognize that there is only one means of achieving long-term Mideast peace: Israel's sweeping retaliation against the scourge of terrorism.

 

As a Jew living in Israel, I'd like to say to those of you here who are showing so much support: Thank you. It's nice to know not everyone gets influenced by CNN-type reporting and rhetoric.

All the best,

Phil

 

I know the Objectivist/Ayn Rand stance on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict - just read Capitalism Magazine - http://www.capmag.com to see other examples.
I am however not an objectivist - as you perhaps remember from some of our other discussions. I do favor many capitalist views, though.

So, you should read what I said; emphasizing the central principle of right of property in capitalism - and even stronger in Objectivism. However, Objectivism incorporates a whole host of principles I do not agree on.
How was that for applying a thinner ?

 

You ignorant bigoted fool!You mention a few thousand killed by muslim extremists.Have you forgot the 6 million Jews murdered by Christians(Hitler"as a christian I am doing God's work").Have you forgot the slaughter of 2 WW's by Christians?Have you forgot the millions killed by the Spanish in South America(santioned by the Pope)?Have you forgot the genocide commited against the native American Indians by Christians?The few million killed in Vietnam,Korea?The murder of innocents by the IRA supported by Americans?The Negroe peoples?The so called "crusades"?The colonization of Middle East countries,African countries,Asian countries,by Christians in order to steal their wealth?

Yes,when it comes down to being savage,uncivilized and barbaric you Western Christians beat Muslims hands down!!

If you think Muslims are better at killing please list the millions of people killed by muslims!!

BTW the video you all saw of Palestinians dancing and celebrating after Sep 11(and you can check this out at the BBC archives) was a film shot by the BBC of a palestinian wedding filmed 7 years before Sep 11 !!!The Israeli sympathizers(and we know who they are.Don't we?)would do anything to discredit the Palestinian people.

How many people in this world could go back to a country they left 2000 years ago and say this is my land and my home?You Americans only left your native lands a few hundred years ago,try to go back and steal what is there and see what happens!!

 

When you look at history you can find many examples where both have been acting like terrorists. So it's not worth continuing as it is endless. One must once again look at history to understand the origin of the conflict and not just emit opinions. For example you can read the classical "O Jerusalem!"
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
http://www.centuryone.com/6241-4.html

to remind you how things began: Bristish first promised palestinians a territory ... entertaining hope ... which was then upset because finally the promised terrority was given to french. And they also promised the same kind of things to jews and if one believe John Loftus (who is a jew) the jews wouldn't have gotten it if Ben Gourion has not acted to threaten Rockfeller for denouncing his alliance with the nazi regim then (and still today) unsuspected by the mass public.

http://www.john-loftus.com/

"As a Justice Department prosecutor, John Loftus once held some of the highest security clearances in the world, with special access to NATO Cosmic, CIA codeword, and Top Secret Nuclear files. As a private attorney, he works without charge to help hundreds of intelligence agents obtain lawful permission to declassify and publish the hidden secrets of our times. He is the author of four history books, three of which have been made into films, two were international best sellers, and one was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

John Loftus and Mark Aarons in The Secret War Against the Jews (St. Martins Press, 1994) reveal that if Kissinger's foreign policy directives had not been secretly reversed by Alexander Haig during the Nixon years, Israel would have been annihilated. Further, had Jewish underground intelligence director David Ben-Gurion not threatened Nelson Rockefeller with disclosing the Standard Oil Company partnership with I.G. Farben, the petrochemical cartel behind the Third Reich's labor camps and genocidal atrocities, the State of Israel would not have been secured in 1948. Thus threatened, Rockefeller was forced to direct critical votes at the United Nations for Israel's formation."

 

Right on the money.
And don't forget the Pope and the catholic church's views on the Jews during the time running up to the holocaust.
After all: "Oh, my god! They killed Christ/Kenny."

Ethnicity is used by extremists all the time - and there are good reasons for having laws against that kind of dangerous instigation. Period.

 

Religions are just pretext to fool people and hide the true motives. I'm not anti-religious people, I have already said that I respect faith, I just talk about the political leaders who exploit that faith of people for much more unoble reasons.

 

Too true.
Sadly many people get very extremist and irrational when they feel strongly about ethnic or religious "disagreements". This is frequently exploited by leaders - like in Rwanda where there were 1000's of machetes imported cheap from China in the time before the propaganda started flowing over radios, TVs and newspaper articles - asking for people to kill their fleeing, filthy neighbours.

 

Keep deluding yourself with mindless nonsense.....

Some quotes from the document The origin of the Palestine- Israeli conflict published by JEWS FOR JUSTICE IN THE MIDDLE EAST:

(i) The standard Zionist position is that they showed up in Palestine to reclaim their ancestral homeland in the late 19th century. Jews bought land and started building their Jewish community their. They were net with increasingly violent opposition from the Palestinian Arabs, presumably stemming from the Arabs` inherent anti-Semitism. The Zionists were then forced to defend themselves and, in one form or another, this same situation continues up to today.

The problem with this explanation is that it is imply not true, as the documentary evidence in this booklet shall show. What really happened was that the Zionist movement, from the beginning, looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the indigenous Arab population so that Israel could be a wholly Jewish state, or as much as was possible.

Land bought by the Jewish National Fund was held in the name of the Jewish people and could never be sold or even leased back to Arabs (a situation which continues to the present). The Arab community, as it became increasingly aware of the Zionists intentions, strenuously opposed further Jewish immigration and land buying because it posed a real and imminent danger to the very existence to Arab society in Palestine. Because of this opposition, the entire Zionist project never could have been realized without the military backing of the British.
The vast majority of the Population of Palestine, by the way, had been Arabic since the seventh century (over 1200 years). In short, Zionism was based on a faulty, colonialist world-view that the rights of the indigenous inhabitants didn’t matter. The Arabs` opposition to Zionism wasn’t based on anti-Semitism but rather on a totally reasonable fear of the dispossession of their people.



(ii) The Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods in ancient Palestine

" The extended kingdoms of David and Solomon, on which the Zionists base their territorial demands, endured for only about 73 years… Then it fell apart…[Even] if we allow independence to the entire life of the ancient Jewish kingdoms, from David’s conquest of Canaan in 100 BC to the wiping out of Juda in 586 BC, we arrive at [only] a 414-year Jewish rule."

Ilene Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the land of Canaan."



(iii) How long has Palestine been specifically Arab country?

" Palestine became a predominantly Arab and Islamic country by the end of the seventh century. Almost immediately thereafter its boundaries and its characteristics – including its name in Arabic, Filastin – became known to the entire Islamic world, as much for its fertility and beauty as for its religious significance…

In 1516, Palestine became a province of the Ottoman Empire, but this made it no less fertile, no less Arab or Islamic…Sixty percent of the population was in agriculture; the balance was divided between townspeople and a relatively small nomadic group.

All these people believed themselves to belong in a land called Palestine, despite their feelings that they were also members of a large Arab nation…Despite the steady arrival in Palestine of Jewish colonists after 1882, it is important to realize that not until the few weeks immediately preceding the establishment of Israel in the spring of 1948 was there ever anything other than huge Arab majority."

Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."



(iv) Jewish attitude towards Arabs upon reaching Palestine

" Serfs they (the Jews) were in the lands of the Diaspora, and suddenly they find themselves in freedom [in Palestine]; and this change has awakened in them an inclination to despotism. They treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them without cause, and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us opposes this despicable and dangerous inclination."

Zionist writer Ahad Ha`am, quoted in Sami Hadawi,"BitterHarvest."


(v) Gandhi on the Palestine conflict – 1938

"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French…What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct….... If they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs…

Mahatma Gandhi quoted in "A Land of Two Peoples" ed. Mendes-Flohr

 

EXACTLY!!!!!!