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Israel Beats Pal. Intifada
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| dj_ilan_yosef |
Israel's Intifada Victory
By Charles Krauthammer
While no one was looking, something historic happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost.
For Israel, the victory is bitter. The past four years of terrorism have killed almost 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands of others. But Israel has won strategically. The intent of the intifada was to demoralize Israel, destroy its economy, bring it to its knees, and thus force it to withdraw and surrender to Palestinian demands, just as Israel withdrew in defeat from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
That did not happen. Israel's economy was certainly wounded, but it is growing again. Tourism had dwindled to almost nothing at the height of the intifada, but tourists are returning. And the Israelis were never demoralized. They kept living their lives, the young people in particular returning to cafes and discos and buses just hours after a horrific bombing. Israelis turned out to be a lot tougher and braver than the Palestinians had imagined.
The end of the intifada does not mean the end of terrorism. There was terrorism before the intifada and there will be terrorism to come. What has happened, however, is an end to systematic, regular, debilitating, unstoppable terror — terror as a reliable weapon. At the height of the intifada, there were nine suicide attacks in Israel killing 85 Israelis in just one month (March 2002). In the past three months there have been none.
The overall level of violence has been reduced by more than 70 percent. How did Israel do it? By ignoring its critics and launching a two-pronged campaign of self-defense.
First, Israel targeted terrorist leaders — attacks so hypocritically denounced by Westerners who, at the same time, cheer the hunt for, and demand the head of, Osama bin Laden. The top echelon of Hamas and other terrorist groups has been either arrested, killed or driven underground. The others are now so afraid of Israeli precision and intelligence — the last Hamas operative to be killed by missile was riding a motorcycle — that they are forced to devote much of their time and energy to self-protection and concealment.
Second, the fence. Only about a quarter of the separation fence has been built, but its effect is unmistakable. The northern part is already complete, and attacks in northern Israel have dwindled to almost nothing.
This success does not just save innocent lives; it changes the strategic equation of the whole conflict.
Yasser Arafat started the intifada in September 2000, just weeks after he had rejected, at Camp David, Israel's offer of withdrawal, settlement evacuation, sharing of Jerusalem and establishment of a Palestinian state. Arafat wanted all that, of course, but without having to make peace and recognize a Jewish state. Hence the terror campaign — to force Israel to give it all up unilaterally.
Arafat failed, spectacularly. The violence did not bring Israel to its knees. Instead, it created chaos, lawlessness and economic disaster in the Palestinian areas. The Palestinians know the ruin that Arafat has brought, and they are beginning to protest it. He promised them blood and victory; he delivered on the blood.
Even more important, they have lost their place at the table. Israel is now defining a new equilibrium that will reign for years to come — the separation fence is unilaterally drawing the line that separates Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians were offered the chance to negotiate that frontier at Camp David and chose war instead. Now they are paying the price.
It stands to reason. It is the height of absurdity to launch a terrorist war against Israel, then demand the right to determine the nature and route of the barrier built to prevent that very terrorism.
These new strategic realities are not just creating a new equilibrium, they are creating the first hope for peace since Arafat officially tore up the Oslo accords four years ago. Once Israel has withdrawn from Gaza and has completed the fence, terrorism as a strategic option will be effectively dead. The only way for the Palestinians to achieve statehood and dignity, and to determine the contours of their own state, will be to negotiate a final peace based on genuine coexistence with a Jewish state.
It could be a year, five years or a generation until the Palestinians come to that realization. The pity is that so many, Arab and Israeli, will have had to die before then. |
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| tathi |
| anyone played that new 1080 snowboarding game for gamecube? it's cool |
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| Flotser |
| quote: | Originally posted by tathi
anyone played that new 1080 snowboarding game for gamecube? it's cool |
the economy in israel is getting better now.... so i guess i'll buy one soon. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| Hmm, I must admit that there hasn't been any big news regarding Israel or Palestine in quite a while...even the IP threads kinda died down... |
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| imokruok |
| Now that Israel doesn't have to spend as much time dealing with the Palestinian terrorists, they can turn their efforts to other things. Like dealing with Iran. |
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| Yoepus |
| quote: | Originally posted by imokruok
Now that Israel doesn't have to spend as much time dealing with the Palestinian terrorists, they can turn their efforts to other things. Like dealing with Iran. |
why do we have to clean up all of the world's dirty work?
we're not America!
:disbelief |
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| Yoepus |
as for the article:
I'd still be a bit hesitant to call it over just yet.
But if this tranquality remains for another three months I will agree with the author, this war has been won.
I am sure the security fence onec completed entirely will bring a dawn of an even longer peace and will serve as the icon of Israeli triumph (so basically all the world will hate it :) ). |
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| Cyrus King |
| quote: | Originally posted by imokruok
Now that Israel doesn't have to spend as much time dealing with the Palestinian terrorists, they can turn their efforts to other things. Like dealing with Iran. |
Or maybe Iran should deal with Israel:eek:
The Palestinian resistance will never end. I dont see peace ever in Israel. Arab nations simply will not accept them. |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by tathi
anyone played that new 1080 snowboarding game for gamecube? it's cool |
screenshots? ;) |
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| emander |
| I know I wasn't looking for this infatada thing. |
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| rupert |
| quote: | | Israel's Intifada Victory |
What a laugh. The combat has died down for now. As in all Protracted Social Conflicts the conflict has its ups and downs. But the conflict will not end until the fundamental causes of why the fighting occurs are addressed. And Israel has no intentions of doing that.
In the long run Israel will lose because of some fundamental basic and unavoidable facts.
1) its population is declining relative to that of its neighbours. The arab birthrate is skyrocketing compared to that of the Jews and there is no mass migration of Russian Jews on the horizon to address it. In fact many of the people who migrated to Israel are looking to leave, why live in a warzone where the government spends money on defence when you can live in another country which spends money on welfare.
2) it is poor people rather than rich people who are more likely to want to fight because they have less to lose from violence. Because they largely are denied to work in Israel, Palestinian poverty is increased and will increase even more as the population increases.
3) the Palestinians are more willing to die.
4) Iran will inevitably get nuclear weapons and will have the capacity to deliver them to Israel with rockets from Pakistan or North Korea, thus eliminating Israels middle-east nuclear monopoly.
5) Islamic fundamentalists will be emboldened by their inevitable victory over the USA in Iraq and will turn their attention to other states in the middle east: like Israel. They see the americans beaten in Fallujah, and Fallujah to them resembles Gaza. The Palestinians have been largely deprived of access to sophisticated weaponry, thus resorting to suicide bombing but with the collapse of Iraq brings the potential access to real weapons to fight Israel like RPG's and machine guns.
6) The governments of the Middle-east are far more pro-western than their people. For example the government of Egypt would never have signed a peace treaty with Israel if it was a democracy. A large slice of the arab population, straight out hate Israel, viewing the Jews as European invaders, and democratisation of the midddle east will not lead to peace but greater ethnic identification with the Palestinians who truth be told have been largely abandoned by the arab governments in the past.
The real war in the middle east is yet to begin |
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| biznology |
OooOOH IRAN!
get a farking clue...Iran is one of the most pro-US Mid East countries out there. sure, they dont supply us with all our necessary oil needs, but thats prolly a good thing.
whilst we were bombing them and creating a hostage crisis from Iraq (read: Iraq, 1980), they since have been trying to internationalize and figure out why so many drugs and otherwise unnecessary were pouring through their borders from the Afg and onto their soil.
pardon political offiliations, but the Saudis may be our 'buddies' on the International scale, but Iranians are doing the most for change - yet with the opposition of all other ME countries| |
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