R
the checkpoints were put there on the west bank because of the second intifada...they will stay there for as long as the israelis suspect that removing them would just invite a third episode of violence...
if the palestinians want the checkpoints gone...they need to show some evidence of good will and convince the israelis that removing the checkpoints isn't merely an invitation to renewed violence...for one thing ending calls for a 'third intifada' would be a start...
this is really the start to resolving the whole mess actually...in decades the palestinians have done little to nothing to produce any confidence in their commitment to living peacefully with their neighbors...
why does the 'occupation' on the west bank continue in the first place? sharon and olmert both had plans for unilateral withdrawal...what happened?
the gaza withdrawal happened...and the rockets followed... what sane government would invite even more of the same by withdrawing from the west bank?
the 'occupation' of the west bank will only end when the israelis are confident that the palestinians are not going to use the territory to build up a war machine to use against them...
until then the palestinians will have to deal with the occupation they themselves have prolonged and the checkpoints that they themselves made necessary by their actions...
you can be disappointed in me if you want...but self inflicted punishment is something i have very little sympathy for...
i don't believe in plans for a 'greater israel'...at this moment israel controls less land than at any points since 1967...they returned the sinai peninsula to egypt in 1982...they withdrew from south lebanon in 2000...they withdrew from the gaza strip in 2005...
this is not the way a country with 'greater israel' aspirations behaves...
about the palestinians having a reputation for being 'trouble' wherever they go...the palestinians actually have been involved in the violence in syria... in spite of their claiming to be 'neutral' in the conflict...they have been fighting on both sides... for example the assad regime bombed the palestinian refugee camp in damascus...the palestinians there were suspected of harboring anti assad militants...
jordan has accepted thousands of syrian refugees...but turned away tens of thousands of palestinian refugees feeling syria...i wonder why? it might have something to do with jordan still not trusting the palestinians after they had responded to the jordanian government's hospitality by attempting to assassinate king hussein and overthrow the government back in 1970...after which the jordanian government completely expelled the palestinian liberation organization from jordan...
in lebanon you only have to look back to 2007...when the lebanese army was forced to invade and ultimately destroy the nahr al-bared palestinian refugee camp for harboring an islamist terrorist organization that had been attacking lebanese christian civilians and military posts... it was the worst violence lebanon had seen since the civil war ended seventeen years prior...
and the list of incidents involving palestinians continues to egypt and iraq and beyond...it seems wherever the palestinians go they find someone to 'resist'...
and why is that? it is because the people calling themselves palestinians have a history of violence and criminality going back centuries...
basically the situation in palestine was that centuries of warfare between various parties had made it an undesirable place to live...most of its earlier arab inhabitants left and more or less took the trappings of civilization with them... palestine became a mostly lawless region...under the control of the ottoman empire in theory only...and inhabited mostly by those members of ottoman society that didn't agree with law and order... those arab outcasts who moved to palestine to get away from civil society...basically the 'gangsters' and 'crime families' of the ottoman world...are the direct ancestors of the modern people who call themselves palestinians...
it should be stressed that the majority of these groups were -not related- in any way...they were unaffiliated arabs from all over the ottoman empire...they were not and are not a distinct people... newt gingrich was actually right...
numerous attempts were made to restore order over the years...the best known was in the 1830s under muhammad ali of egypt who had conquered the region from the ottoman empire... muhammad ali attempted to revive the economy and trade and modernize institutions... in 1834 the disparate groups of palestine united in a rebellion against muhammad ali that was eventually suppressed...the palestinians as an cohesive 'people' do not date back beyond 1834...if you even consider a rebel alliance of unrelated clans to be a people at all...
that brings us to roughly the point where the zionist settlements began that would eventually lead to the establishment of the modern state of israel...
i never claimed that the palestinians were responsible for all of the trouble in the region...but whever they have gone they brought their 500 years of criminal culture with them...and the results have been predictable...their conflict with israel is just another example of their inability to function as a civilized society because -they never had one to begin with-
i am afraid that the entire palestinian culture will need to be overhauled before real peace will be possible...
if the palestinians want the checkpoints gone...they need to show some evidence of good will and convince the israelis that removing the checkpoints isn't merely an invitation to renewed violence...for one thing ending calls for a 'third intifada' would be a start...
this is really the start to resolving the whole mess actually...in decades the palestinians have done little to nothing to produce any confidence in their commitment to living peacefully with their neighbors...
why does the 'occupation' on the west bank continue in the first place? sharon and olmert both had plans for unilateral withdrawal...what happened?
the gaza withdrawal happened...and the rockets followed... what sane government would invite even more of the same by withdrawing from the west bank?
the 'occupation' of the west bank will only end when the israelis are confident that the palestinians are not going to use the territory to build up a war machine to use against them...
until then the palestinians will have to deal with the occupation they themselves have prolonged and the checkpoints that they themselves made necessary by their actions...
you can be disappointed in me if you want...but self inflicted punishment is something i have very little sympathy for...
i don't believe in plans for a 'greater israel'...at this moment israel controls less land than at any points since 1967...they returned the sinai peninsula to egypt in 1982...they withdrew from south lebanon in 2000...they withdrew from the gaza strip in 2005...
this is not the way a country with 'greater israel' aspirations behaves...
about the palestinians having a reputation for being 'trouble' wherever they go...the palestinians actually have been involved in the violence in syria... in spite of their claiming to be 'neutral' in the conflict...they have been fighting on both sides... for example the assad regime bombed the palestinian refugee camp in damascus...the palestinians there were suspected of harboring anti assad militants...
jordan has accepted thousands of syrian refugees...but turned away tens of thousands of palestinian refugees feeling syria...i wonder why? it might have something to do with jordan still not trusting the palestinians after they had responded to the jordanian government's hospitality by attempting to assassinate king hussein and overthrow the government back in 1970...after which the jordanian government completely expelled the palestinian liberation organization from jordan...
in lebanon you only have to look back to 2007...when the lebanese army was forced to invade and ultimately destroy the nahr al-bared palestinian refugee camp for harboring an islamist terrorist organization that had been attacking lebanese christian civilians and military posts... it was the worst violence lebanon had seen since the civil war ended seventeen years prior...
and the list of incidents involving palestinians continues to egypt and iraq and beyond...it seems wherever the palestinians go they find someone to 'resist'...
and why is that? it is because the people calling themselves palestinians have a history of violence and criminality going back centuries...
basically the situation in palestine was that centuries of warfare between various parties had made it an undesirable place to live...most of its earlier arab inhabitants left and more or less took the trappings of civilization with them... palestine became a mostly lawless region...under the control of the ottoman empire in theory only...and inhabited mostly by those members of ottoman society that didn't agree with law and order... those arab outcasts who moved to palestine to get away from civil society...basically the 'gangsters' and 'crime families' of the ottoman world...are the direct ancestors of the modern people who call themselves palestinians...
it should be stressed that the majority of these groups were -not related- in any way...they were unaffiliated arabs from all over the ottoman empire...they were not and are not a distinct people... newt gingrich was actually right...
numerous attempts were made to restore order over the years...the best known was in the 1830s under muhammad ali of egypt who had conquered the region from the ottoman empire... muhammad ali attempted to revive the economy and trade and modernize institutions... in 1834 the disparate groups of palestine united in a rebellion against muhammad ali that was eventually suppressed...the palestinians as an cohesive 'people' do not date back beyond 1834...if you even consider a rebel alliance of unrelated clans to be a people at all...
that brings us to roughly the point where the zionist settlements began that would eventually lead to the establishment of the modern state of israel...
i never claimed that the palestinians were responsible for all of the trouble in the region...but whever they have gone they brought their 500 years of criminal culture with them...and the results have been predictable...their conflict with israel is just another example of their inability to function as a civilized society because -they never had one to begin with-
i am afraid that the entire palestinian culture will need to be overhauled before real peace will be possible...
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