Kevin's Watch

Does anybody have any clue to what is happening between the Israelis and the Palenstinians at the moment? One day i hear that at UN brokered peace accord has been reached and the Israelis are going to remove settlers from the West Bank as part of the agreement. It all sounds great!! - maybe the cycle of violence can be de-railed

The next thing i know, the Israelis have launched rockets from helicopters, killing a Hamas leader (which from their POV is a good thing), but also killing and injuring civilians who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now Hamas promises an increase in suicide bombers, and the merry-go-round starts again...

Just what is going on?

Sometimes, resisting the Despiser seems impossible...

Happens all the time - and the number of suicide bombers has greatly increased in the last couple of weeks, it's on the news a lot now (not that it wasn't already). It won't stop as long as Jews occupy one country and Muslims the other.

Surely the must be more to it than that...i mean, ive seen tv programs,(always a completetly reliable source of info! ), but ive seen shows where families in the Gaza strip talk about living together - Jew and Muslim - with no troubles, just being part of one community. And from personal experience here in OZ, we have people of very different cultural/ethnic/religious backgrounds living in the same suburbs without such disturbing acts of violence.

Until the religious leaders sign off on some kind of agreement, there will probably be little progress over there. So many of the actions done there are justified under the cover of religion. That crutch has to be removed from the zealots of both sides before anything approaching a settlement can occur.

An article in the Atlantic Monthly about 'future headlines' predicts a Berlin-style wall seperating the West Bank from the rest of Israel; but this would be bad for Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and it would basically destroy any chances of a better Palestenian economy.

Earthfriend wrote:Does anybody have any clue to what is happening between the Israelis and the Palenstinians at the moment?

Same thing that's been happening since at least '95 (as long as I've been following the area). There are deals and agreements, then one party doesn't live up to its side so the other party backs out of the agreement. This is generally followed by a whole lot of finger-pointing and namecalling. Things quiet down, agreements are made... wash, rinse, repeat. Oh yeah, and a liberal dose of bombings, riots, retaliatory strikes, etc. in between and during all phases.

I still think things are looking a little bit better now that Arafat's being shoved out. If only Abbas had enough clout to control Hamas and the other militants and the Israelis could elect a decent peace-oriented leader (yeah, I'm hawkish, but I can also see there are times when it just doesn't work. not that I don't agree with the retaliatory strikes somewhat, but... blah, not gonna get into that) who didn't have to pander to the orthodox to keep his coalition together...

Suicide bombers, missles, suicide bombers, missles...then they take Saturday off 2 discuss peace then it starts all over again...I wonder if there's some gruesome average of how many people die per day over here?

Lord Mhoram wrote:An article in the Atlantic Monthly about 'future headlines' predicts a Berlin-style wall seperating the West Bank from the rest of Israel; but this would be bad for Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and it would basically destroy any chances of a better Palestenian economy.

I saw that article. Israel is already, apparently, working on that wall.

Looks like the dark facets of religion at work again. They've caused the indifferences that led to borderlines of hate between Israel and their enemies. No excuse or side is right--there's no black or white. Both sides are killing each other. Blind peace (not blind faith) is the only answer.

Religion does seem to be to blame for a great deal of the suffering going on there - but i wonder how much of it can be tied to economics, as well?

(From what ive seen and read - admittedly not much! - Israel seems to have a 'first-world' economy, if you'll pardon the label/generalisation. Palestine, on the other hand, seems decidedly 'third-world'. )

Yeah, that's right EF, and it would help Palestine'e economy conisderably if they would join with Israel, which is of course absolutely out of the question.

I'd like to quibble a little bit on the religion issue. Religion is only an issue to the militants involved. The Israelis are not killing Palestinians because they're muslim (there are, in fact, muslim Israelis... like Moshe Dian, a former Minister of Defense, IIRC). Other than the religious wackos who cause the biggest problems (for instance, the jewish extremist who assassinated Rabin), the main differences are socio-political (a rather broad term to define pride, prejudice, and stubborness). It's mostly a matter of "us and them," not "Y***e and Allah."

So what's the answer?

I heard this morning that the Egyptian government is now trying to negotiate a 6 month cease fire - sort of a stop gap measure to bring a halt to the violence and get both parties back to the table...

But how can the situation be more permenantly reconciled? And why hasn't the UN gotten more directly involved - surely a UN-led peacekeeping force in the area would help ease tensions on both sides, or am i just being naive?

Neither side wants the UN involved, and besides which, the UN has a rather poor record of keeping the peace in the area (Lebanon).

Caer Sylvanus wrote:Neither side wants the UN involved, and besides which, the UN has a rather poor record of keeping the peace in the area (Lebanon).

ok, so the UN is out. What about a package from 'developed' countries to help raise Palestine's standard of living? If part of the motivations behind the violence are socio-political and economic, maybe an attempt to create more social equity between the two countries would help?

I don't know way this issue has got stuck in my craw all of a sudden...there's death and violence and injustice everywhere, including my own backyard, without getting involved in something so far from home...It's just that, in many ways, the middle-east is the birth place of 'modern civilization' - and the people there seem to have been fighting each other for most of that time. I guess i feel that if they can't work out the humanity's need to grow beyond violence, what hope have the rest of us got?

Well, now i'm really depessed! Time to put on my Billy Connelly tape and have a good laugh!!

I'd say the main reason people don't offer the palestinians more economic aid (other than the fact that they are not a sovreign state, thus of only political interest) is that they make a better poster child of victimization by the zionist/american imperialist machine than they do allies.