Post #20,436
12/5/01 11:40:24 PM
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Arafat under pressure from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan
[link|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64538-2001Dec5.html|Here] from the Washington Post. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 5 \ufffd With violence escalating between Israel and the Palestinians, key Arab leaders have begun privately telling Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to do more to curb militant groups in order to preserve the possibility of a return to peace talks and avoid international isolation, Arab and Western officials said today.
In a potentially important rhetorical shift, the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, three moderate Arab states whose involvement is key to Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, have avoided any direct criticism of Israeli helicopter and fighter plane strikes launched in retaliation for a series of suicide bombings by Palestinians over the weekend.
[...]
"They are telling him roughly the same thing [U.S. Secretary of State] Colin Powell is telling him," the Western official said of the message to Arafat. "The [Arab] leaders are frightened. They hate [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon, but Arafat is not without culpability, and they know that you can't pull out the old playbook anymore."
A top member of the Saudi royal family expressed what may be a growing frustration with both sides in the conflict. "It has gone beyond blaming and it is time to stop," Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence minister, said in an interview this week. "When you see pictures of body parts spread all over the place \ufffd it makes you sick. Who the hell is Sharon or Arafat to cause their people this suffering?"
[...]
After the attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, head of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, was quoted in the Egyptian press as saying that Islam "rejects all attempts on human life, and in the name of sharia [Islamic law] we condemn all attacks on civilians, whatever the community or state responsible for such an attack."
Similar comments were issued by a ranking Saudi scholar, Muhammad ibn Abdullah Al-Subail, a member of the country's senior council of clerics and an imam at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Cheers, Scott.
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Post #20,440
12/6/01 12:07:49 AM
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One can only hope it has some effect.
But there is evidence that Arafat is having less and less control over radical palistinian groups. It is doubtful Arafat himself would direct or even condone this week's suicide bombings, but it's equally doubtful he can have much an influence over hate groups doing these things.
He's in a no-win situation. He's promoted anti-Jew propaganda for the past (what?) twenty, thirty years? Now he is supposed to reverse the racism and hatred built up over the past few years? Mmmm-hmmm. right.
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
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Post #20,583
12/6/01 9:21:24 PM
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Been having an effect for some time
ameliorated (!) by one of the principal laws of human relations: "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."
The Arab countries have been sowing the wind for half a century. In the confident knowledge that the United States at least wanted to be seen as a nice guy, and would restrain the Israelis if they got too bloody, they've seen a clear field for aggrandizing themselves, and justifying their rule, by pointing to the United States, and the West in general, as the bad guys stealing the peoples' livelihoods.
Now, as the burgeoning crop of whirl-winds emerges from the fertile soil, they're all looking for shelter. One of the byproducts of Osama bin Laden, al Qaida, and the WTC terrorism is that the United States has decided that it will never be seen as the nice guy. That being the case, a whole set of tactics that were heretofore foreclosed by public opinion are now open -- and the greatest of these is: ::shrug:: what's a Palestinian?
Another byproduct is Hamas, which grew in Southern Lebanon and now makes its home in Palestine, and is almost entirely the result of Israeli restraint at U.S. urging. [It could have been destroyed in the early days, but it would have been ugly -- approaching genocidal -- and that wasn't allowed.] Hamas is totally, bitterly opposed to allowing any Jew to survive, let alone the State of Israel -- and thanks to fifty years of propaganda, they've got the bodies. It's almost possible to feel pity for Arafat. If he makes peace with the Israelis, especially Sharon, Hamas will kill him in a heartbeat. If he doesn't make peace with the Israelis, the IDF will take him out in roughly the same period of time.
I said "almost possible". At this point, it's getting harder and harder from where I sit to feel much sympathy for either side, although by me Israel still gets a good bit of credit. As for Arafat, he made his own bed -- although to be sure he had plenty of assistance from Syria, Iraq, the Saudis, and Egypt (more or less in that order).
Regards,
Ric
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Post #20,590
12/6/01 10:17:27 PM
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Not a bad summary
fer a Texan without a motorcycle \ufffd
Matters have probably gone too far (and our particular forays du jour gone too serendipitously - as NoOne could have predicted just weeks ago..) for us to even play much at bein Mr. NiceGuy - Hey! wanna buy our stuff? Huh? Huh?
I don't know (either) how you de-program thousands (?) of wannabe ex-virgins enroute ---> to an only slightly less-absurd Reward than er Xian Heaven-with-harps. (And our own theological nostruns intermixed with Govt. - demonstrate that we can't even de-program ourselves.)
Maybe.. just maybe the sight of heaped dead burnt bodies in wholesale lots, will deliver such a conscious shock (can't be no steenkin Martyr.. if'n They gets You! afore You gets Yerself! - no?) -- that there will be some er widespread epiphanies amongst the holy sheep.
Maybe.. but it'll be the First time IMho. People are fond of dyin for shibboleths and fantasies; especially when they're livin amidst trash and Puritan-variant secret police already. What's to lose, if'n ya never Had.. a good day since you were weaned?
Muricans know *nothing* of how the rest of the world actually lives day-day - and care less. And certainly aren't seriously into sharing. (except platitudes about Workin Hard\ufffd and you too.. can be the 1% fat local cat)
Then there's Arbeit Macht Frei to kick around - try that one on permanent inmates of the Jordanian/Syrian Resettlement Camps?
It's gonna be an interestin Crap Shoot, methinks.
Ashton
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Post #20,597
12/6/01 11:36:48 PM
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Deprogramming.
You must have missed the 60 Minutes follow-up piece of a "peace camp" for Israeli and Palestinian teenagers in Vermont or New Hampshire. Lot's of heated accusatory exchanges between the kids at the beginning. By the end of the program, they understood although not accepted each others point of view. Each saw the humanity of the other and could cooperate on mixed teams and share victories in the various competitions. Hugging each other no less. In the follow-up interviews after a couple of years of all being at home, it was back to square one. Each thought the other side was inhumane and of whom no one could be trusted.
Deprogramming is required for both!
It's a pity you don't see the symmetry.
Alex
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
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Post #20,612
12/7/01 3:47:25 AM
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I guess you missed
I don't know (either) how you de-program thousands (?) of wannabe
ex-virgins enroute ---> to an only slightly less-absurd Reward than er
Xian Heaven-with-harps. (And our own theological nostruns
intermixed with Govt. - demonstrate that we can't even de-program
ourselves.) At least, I have an ideal of details of the local programming - mostly hearsay (and some first-hand) re the overseas variant. I see no 'solution' to any of the variants - until sufficient maturity occurs, that folk all over: stop attributing their fav personal characteristics to.. the Mystery that existence is. The personal/customized-God stuff is a festering boil on the ass of humanity, and guarantees replay of all this stupid stuff. Indefinitely. All the rest is: bandaids and BS, spun to a new tune periodically (and always - sanctimoniously). A.
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Post #20,642
12/7/01 11:06:44 AM
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So, we should focus only on the guys that push the button
to blow themselves up in populated places and ignore the IDF guys who taunt and then pick off kids with rocks? I choose to look at both.
Do not look behind the curtain, there is no relation between such events.
It's all about hatred, my friend. And it's intense and it's on both sides.
Alex
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
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Post #20,673
12/7/01 3:10:54 PM
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Not implicit in what I said.
Rock-throwing is illegal about everywhere - how you stop individual events is part of the local laws. There are non-lethal approaches, apparently rarely employed. (Why do cops everywhere run First to projectile weapons? Habit. Slothful thought. Testosterone.)
I prefer *radical surgery to pharm-chem happy pills. The root of the problem is ~ the child abuse of inculcating wildly asocial principles in tiny minds; then keeping those minds tiny via Draconian 10th century superstition. ie and even simpler, always and Everywhere -
Ignorance Kills. Intentionally brainwashing malleable minds IS a Crime - we just lack the subtlety to uncover any means of enforcing sanctions against such kinds of Crimes. (Will leave Language-murder for another thread).
* as in radix==root-cause.
We use force so often because:
A) as a species we are mentally lazy, mostly.
B) Men (indeed) 'Love War'. Genetic cock-up (pun intended)
C) It's EZiest! - for those who ever choose the instant result - as in: bizness' first-quarter results mindset: ~ the way we run the world.
D) Add your fav other homo-sap stupidity here ____
A.
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Post #20,606
12/7/01 2:10:30 AM
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I still like Pournelle's solution
Whereever there were celebrations at the World Trade Center bombings, tell the occupants: you have two hours to move.
Then bulldoze the area. Make it flatter than a pancake. Salt the earth so nothing will ever grow there again. Construct a monument (visible from orbit) to the victims of the WTC bombing.
Doesn't matter if it is Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia - if we have to smash the armies of a dozen Arab countries while we do it, so be it. None of this limp-wristed coalition building. By the end of it, none of the Arab countries will be our friend, but then they never really were anyway. They will be afraid, very afraid, of us. That will suffice.
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
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