>Look at the Palestinian struggle - they are holding their ground - despite the fact that a Palestinian man, women or child, in some west bank ghetto, is dying every hour from apache fire raytheon rockets!Whoa! Slow down.
Also remember the facts of history and their people.
a) There is no real historically thing as a Palestinian Nation. The UN vote in November 1947 gave them a place to live (mostly as part of the Kingdom of Transjordan - today called Jordan). By Apil 1948 all of them, including their King Abdullah, and all other Arab nations had rejected the UN vote (altough most iof them had voted for it) and attacked the new nation of Israel. Altugh they lost that war, which created the current situation, they still had most of the West Bank. Jordan could have provided for them. They didn't
b) In June 1969, there was another war, instigated mainly by G.A. Nasser of Egypt, with the acquiecense {sp?} of the Jordanian Monarchy and other Arab nations. They lost that war too, this time losing most of the West Bank and settling the borders to mostly what you see today.
c) They get a self-appointed leader, a terrorist by the name of Arafat. He unsuccessfully tries for over 30 years to fight against Israeli civilians and military with violence. He does not succeed. Due to international pressure he changes his tactics and becomes a "stateman".
d) In the late '90s he is offered the best deal of his life and the best peace deal he could have realistically hoped for. In fact, I am still amazed at waht Prime Minister E. Barak offered him to make peace between their two peoples. Arafat was stupid enough to reject it. What he got from that is the fall of the Barak (moderate) government and a replacement by a reactionary right government (A. Sharon). What happenned then is that Arafat became a non-entity, a totally irrelevant figure.
There is no question that Sharon exceeds his bounds in some instances with heavy handed responses. But do not forget - as your previous message did - that the terrorists are targetting innocent civilians, women and children in buses, sidewalk cafes, wedding parties, etc. instead of just fighting the military.
Should Sharon do everything the way he does? No.
Is Sharon to blame for a lot of things that should not have happenned? Yes.
Should the Palestinians reign in their fringe terrorist-violent factions and sit accross a table to discuss a solution? Yes.
Should they abide by the Oslo accords that they signed? Yes.
Should our current Administration (W. & Co.) do more to promote peace in the region? Definitely Yes as they meekly proposed a so-called "Roadmap" then kind of forgot about iot and merrily went into other costly military adventures elsewhere.
